LBN534 and VdB158 in Andromeda

[coatesg]

After a fairly long hiatus in imaging, it's good to be back doing AP again - the long break was partly due to working together with @Pompey Monkey (Paul) in getting everything together and installing a setup as a joint venture at EEYE in Spain. We completed the setup in mid September, and have been going through the usual teething issues in getting it running, not helped by having only one partly clear night out of the 4 we were there! I've been discovering bugs in SGP and in the Gemini 2 controller firmware along the way, but we're managing to tease data out of the system and work round issues that we have. 

This is the first light from our setup there - LBN534 (Gal 110-13) is a large, faint dust cloud, extending for about 1.5 degrees across northern Andromeda. It looks like a large cosmic tick in this orientation. LBN534 contains the blue reflection nebula VdB 158, illuminated by HD222142, which is located towards the southern end of the nebula (north is to the left in this view). The tiny planetary nebula PN K 1-20 (PK 110-12 1 or PN G110.6-12.9) can be found lurking just to the south (right) of the nebula and is a beautiful deep blue-green colour (it's only 34 arcsec in diameter). 

Lots more work to do as we go and it has been much harder than I envisaged to get to this point (not helped by bugs and snagging), and a lot of streamlining we can do, but amazing the hours we've already been able to do from what is a dark place indeed. (we maybe went a bit overboard with the data on this one, but first run and all that...) 

 

Scope: Skywatcher Esprit 80ED with flattener
Camera: SBIG STF-8300 with Baader LRGB filters
Mount: MI-250 with Gemini-2
Exposure: LRGB = 18h : 3h20m : 3h40m : 3h20m (all in 10min subs - 28h20m total). 
Image Capture: Graeme Coates & Paul Tribe
Processing: Graeme Coates (Pixinsight)

Astrobin link: https://astrob.in/0okq1g/0/

Thanks for looking!

 

 

Edited November 13, 2019 by coatesg

[Pompey Monkey]

That's great.

I'd better get up to speed with my processing. I've got no more excuses!