Valentine Rose Nebula Sh2-174 (LBN 598)

[gorann]

Full moon but at least a first clear night in a while so I put my trust into the NBZ filter to block most of the moonlight. I think it did a fairly good job in the 4+4 hours of clear sky I got with my dual-RASA rig before clouds moved in again. This is a faint magnitude 14.7 object but still I am rather pleased with the result.

This likely planetary nebula is about 1000 ly away and is quite old. The white dwarf presumed to be its origin it is not in the center of the nebula and the asymmetry is thought to be caused by interaction with the surrounding interstellar medium, which drags the Ha emission behind and the presence of this medium is quite evident in this wide field image (so an advantage of using the RASA for a nebula that I thought might be a bit small for this set-up). The white dwarf is the small blue star below the reddish star in the center of the blue (Oiii emitting) area.

But it may not be a planetary nebula at all and there is some interesting info here: https://www.spaceimages.de/en/astrophotos/nebula/sh2-174

So, caught before midnight on 17th Jan 2022 with two RASA8 with ASI2600MC on a Mesu 200. IDAS NBZ filter, gain 100, offset 30, -15°C. 47 x 2 x 5 min = 470 min = nearly 8 hours.

Cheers & more CS, Göran

 

Edited January 19, 2022 by gorann

[tomato]

Great capture, the object shows some well defined structure in your image which a lot of PNs seem to exhibit, but then it disappears into the amorphous glow of the hydrogen cloud.

Another target to add to my list to do, even when the moon is up.👍

[gorann]

48 minutes ago, tomato said:

Great capture, the object shows some well defined structure in your image which a lot of PNs seem to exhibit, but then it disappears into the amorphous glow of the hydrogen cloud.

Another target to add to my list to do, even when the moon is up.👍

Thanks Steve! Yes, somehow that Ha cloud is messing up the PN, which I think makes the object more interesting.

[TakMan]

Considering the lunar phase Göran, that's amazing....

Will there be any targets left for the rest of us when this season is over or will you have completed them all ! ?  🤪

Damian

[gorann]

20 hours ago, TakMan said:

Considering the lunar phase Göran, that's amazing....

Will there be any targets left for the rest of us when this season is over or will you have completed them all ! ?  🤪

Damian

Thanks a lot Damian! which one do you want me to leave?

When I counted it, it seems like I on averade managed one image per week last year, so I am rather pleased. But check out Gary Imm on Astrobin - he posts at least one image a day. But he is retired and lives in Texas, where he has astrodarkness year around and clouds are apparently rarities....