Lower’s Nebula

[Hughsie]

So named after father and son amateur astronomers, Harold and Charles Lower who discovered this HII region in 1939. It is also a member of the Stuart Sharpless catalogue where it is designated Sh2-261.

This emission nebula is located in the constellation, Orion and can be found North of Betelguese. It is approximately 2,900 light years distant, 26 light years across and has a visual magnitude of +10.

Being situated in Orion it is surprising that it was not discovered sooner but given the competition from M42 and the Flame and Horse Head nebulae, it is not unexpected that this remains an infrequently photographed object.

Data

HaRGB Composite with subframes made up as follows 36:12:12:12.

Exposure time 300s.

Darks x 50; flats x 25 and dark flats x 25.

 

Equipment

William Optics Z103 refractor

ZWO ASI1600mm Pro Cool camera.

ZWO EFW.

Chroma 1.25” filters.

SkyWatcher EQ6R-Pro mount.

 

Software

Sequence Generator Pro for data acquisition and equipment management.

PHD2 for guiding.

PixInsight for processing.

 

 

 

Thank you for dropping by.

John

Edited January 10, 2022 by Hughsie