Sh2-290 in Cancer (Ha) WiP

[TakMan]

Decided to try something a bit different for 'Galaxy Season' as my focal length is rather limited.

So a bit of a challenge...

Abell 31 / Sharpless Sh2-290 / PK 219 +31 / ARO 135

Was keen to process and see what had been captured... Had hoped for a tad more, but the three nights last week (Thursday 24th - Saturday 26th), whilst clear and without the moon, were not very transparent - could only just make out Leo and couldn't even see Cancer naked eye - I blame it on all this sand folks have been talking about in the sky!

Despite the lack of the moon, working in Ha was a better choice under the conditions than imaging in broadband...

Hope to try and get some OIII for this very faint object (which is supposed to be stronger than the Ha), perhaps even SII in the future

Perhaps my time was wasted on this target, but here's 11Hrs - 33x 1200sec exposures (the individual light frames showed hardly anything of the nebula), from my back garden in Lichfield, Staffs. Chroma 50mm unmounted 3nm Ha, dark and flat frame calibrated + dark flats

Aligned/stacked in APP. Post-processed in Ps and stand-a-lone StarNet++ (V1) on OSX.

FSQ106ED @ f/5 - Atik 16200M (running at -20ºC), Atik OAG/SBIG-ST-i

Do the clicky thing for the full size jpeg (slight crop after stacking)

An ancient planetary nebula at the foot of Cancer (below open cluster M67), discovered in 1955 by George Abell. Estimated to be 2,000 light years away.
Although it is one of the largest planetary nebulae in the sky - nearly the size of the better known Helix Nebula, it is pretty dim... makes my last target, the Jellyfish Nebula look positively bright by comparison!
The nebula is moving through space at high speed. The direction of this motion is defined by a wide bow shock where the nebular gas and dust is compressed by the interaction with the interstellar medium. Gas heading in the opposite direction is moving downwind, and remains relatively untouched, making that boundary diffuse in comparison.

Thanks for looking, clear skies...

Damian

Edited March 30, 2022 by TakMan

[SamAndrew]

Very faint one indeed, I have about 9 hours on this using the Rasa and have similar results, think I've hit the limit for my skies, but there not a lot of choice of narrowband targets at the moment!

[TakMan]

Thanks for the reply Sam

Would be interested to see your results… please drop me a link if you have processed…

Clear (and transparent!) skies…

D

[SamAndrew]

Bortle 7 - around 9 hours of data. still quite noisy, more data and darker skies needed! This is the original resolution, but given the noise levels it looks better resampled down to about 50%

Edited March 31, 2022 by SamAndrew

[TakMan]

That’s an improvement on mine - nicely done 👍

I had a look out last night… lovely and clear, could see so many stars!

I think mine has suffered from the transparency levels. Should have tried a comparison last night - but the wife and I have gone down with the dreaded Covid so decided against that and went out this morning in the sunshine to grab some solar Ha instead!

Thanks for posting Sam.

Damian