Cygnus Mosaic: NA to Butterfly in Ha

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Shot on the night of the 13th/14th, here's a two panel mosaic of central Cygnus.

Hiding in the dust to the left of the Butterfly is the Cygnus OB2 association, home to some of the most massive and luminous stars in the galaxy, which can be seen as a faint star cluster. If you find the small snaking nebula to the left of the Butterfly, it's above it and to the right.

Stitching the two panes was a bit of a nightmare as I couldn't get the flats to apply (yet again), nor would Microsoft ICE stitch them together. In the end I aligned manually in PS and adjusted levels/curves to get a fairly close match on the second pane.

Each pane is 26x2 minutes with the Samyang 135mm, modded canon 100D and clip-in Ha filter. This combination gives just enough resolution to make out the pillar in the head of the Pelican but not enough to do it justice.

I also shot these two panes in colour the same night but I'm not confident they will match up that well.

Here's a wider but shallower view of the same area, which was made by stitching together 2 minute exposures in ICE.

 

Edited May 29, 2020 by Knight of Clear Skies

[pietervdv]

Always great to see nice B/W images like this. This is a very handy reference image to pick some potential new targets from! 

Pieter

[Knight of Clear Skies]

1 hour ago, pietervdv said:

Always great to see nice B/W images like this. This is a very handy reference image to pick some potential new targets from! 

Pieter

Thanks. I have an even wider view which might be useful, taken with an old 35mm lens.

Another good resource for planning shots is https://www.mdwskysurvey.org/, they are attempting to map out the entire northern sky in Ha at considerable depth.