The Flaming Star Nebula - IC 405

[PhotoGav]

The Flaming Star Nebula

This one has been a popular target just recently and here is my take on it. The star AE Aurigae, the bright star left of centre of the image, is passing through a particularly dusty region of space in the constellation of Auriga. Its high energy has created a violent bow shock and is exciting the cloud of dust, causing it to 'flame'. This is all happening about 1,700 light years from Earth. The proper motion of AE Aurigae can trace it back to Orion, where it is thought that it was ejected from the Trapezium in the Orion Nebula through the collision of two binary star groups. Whatever, it is very pretty!

 

 

Tech Specs

Skywatcher Esprit100, Mesu 200, QSI 683-WSG8 & Astrodon 31mm Filters

B = 36 x 300s
R = 24 x 300s
G = 24 x 300s
Ha (5nm) = 36 x 1800s
TOTAL = 25 hours

 

This has taken a looong time to process. Much of that time has been spent trying and trying again. I don't know what it is with this one, but I have really struggled with it. The stars have been a nightmare to contain and I'm still not really happy with this result, but I just can't look at it any more, so here it is! I am very interested to hear what you think of the image. Any suggestions or is it actually OK?! On the other hand, I am very happy with it. The Astrodon filters are a significant improvement and the Ha filter is really tasty. I was happy to get plenty of data and the scope continues to deliver good results. The Mesu is becoming a joy to work with. It took a while to settle in, but now it is working sweetly and when the atmosphere is settled, it is delivering quite simply spectacular tracking results. My raft of recent upgrades has put me in a position where the limiting factor is beginning to be narrowed down to sky conditions (and my processing skills...). Will a dark sky location have to be the next upgrade...?!

Anyway, thanks for looking, stay warm and enjoy the lovely clear nights when they finally come round every now and again!

[Davey-T]

Damn fine image Gav, got the nice blue bit that always evaded my efforts though I haven't tried it since getting the Astrodons,  stars look good in full size just wish I had a bigger screen to see the whole thing in one 

Dave

[Saganite]

Well  I think that is quite superb, really beautiful.

[Laurin Dave]

Pretty it most certainly is Gav, that's very nice...  but where on earth did you find 25 hours of clear sky recently? 

Dave

[PhotoGav]

1 hour ago, Davey-T said:

Damn fine image Gav, got the nice blue bit that always evaded my efforts though I haven't tried it since getting the Astrodons,  stars look good in full size just wish I had a bigger screen to see the whole thing in one 

Dave

Thanks Dave. The blue bits are one of the issues I have with the image - they’ve lost a bit of blue intensity during processing. 

1 hour ago, Saganite said:

Well  I think that is quite superb, really beautiful.

Thank you Steve,

5 minutes ago, Laurin Dave said:

Pretty it most certainly is Gav, that's very nice...  but where on earth did you find 25 hours of clear sky recently? 

Dave

Thanks Dave. It is the result of many different nights over multiple months. Can’t remember exactly when, but through November, December & January. Not all nights were totally perfect, but round these parts we can’t be choosey!

[Barry-Wilson]

Congratulations Gav - a superior image with sumptuous depth of colour to the nebula.

There are a lot of stars and a range of stars sizes adds to the depth of field I think.

Very well processed and beautiful image Gav.  Chapeau!

[wxsatuser]

Very nice image with a lovely sumptuous red and well worth the effort.

[peter shah]

as already said, a top image, nice deep extension with tight colourful stars

[PhotoGav]

Thank you Barry, Mike & Peter. I’m beginning to like the image more as these positive comments come through! Perhaps I was being too harsh on myself. I still have a couple of issues with it, but I’m learning to look beyond them. Barry, it’s partly your fault - your Spanish version has such beautiful stars...! It’s interesting to see such similarity on the one hand, yet our very different interpretations. I wonder which is ‘right’?! For example, what colour is hydrogen alpha, really?

[tomato]

In my humble opinion, that’s on a par with images captured from the well known European mainland locations, I admire your perseverance and patience to build up that number of hours on a single subject from the UK, but it has clearly paid off?

[wxsatuser]

10 hours ago, PhotoGav said:

Thank you Barry, Mike & Peter. I’m beginning to like the image more as these positive comments come through! Perhaps I was being too harsh on myself. I still have a couple of issues with it, but I’m learning to look beyond them. Barry, it’s partly your fault - your Spanish version has such beautiful stars...! It’s interesting to see such similarity on the one hand, yet our very different interpretations. I wonder which is ‘right’?! For example, what colour is hydrogen alpha, really?

Hydrogen Alpha is red, emission lines are very narrow and the colour is very saturated.

Hydrogen emission nebulae can be various colours, blue to magenta to red, depending on the temperature and the amount of dust.

One thing I'm not sure on, if we add Ha into the RGB do we get extra reddening, is this a true colour of the object?
 

[PhotoGav]

12 hours ago, tomato said:

In my humble opinion, that’s on a par with images captured from the well known European mainland locations, I admire your perseverance and patience to build up that number of hours on a single subject from the UK, but it has clearly paid off?

Thank you. Patience is key, but it is much easier to rack up the hours with an observatory. 

2 hours ago, wxsatuser said:

Hydrogen Alpha is red, emission lines are very narrow and the colour is very saturated.

Hydrogen emission nebulae can be various colours, blue to magenta to red, depending on the temperature and the amount of dust.

One thing I'm not sure on, if we add Ha into the RGB do we get extra reddening, is this a true colour of the object?
 

Exactly! How to tell what the ‘true’ colour of an object is? It doesn’t really matter and I am generally happy with the approximations that I create, but it would be interesting to have a more ‘scientific’ approach to colour.