LBN 438 HaOiiiRGB

[gorann]

This is 11+ hours of IDAS NBZ filtered data (so mainly Ha and Oiii) that I collected two nights ago during bright moonlight, combined with 4 hours of RGB data from the first night I used this dual-RASA8 rig (back in September 2021). I did a starless version (StarXT) of each data set and mixed them about 50-50, and then added a similar star mix at a reduced level using curves in PS.

The prominent central structure is LBN438, which is catalogued in Lynds' Catalogue of Bright Nebula, but it is quite dim and demands rather deep data and stretch. Its magnitude is 16 and the surface brightness only 23. It is 30 arc-minutes long.There are more LBNs in the image including 435 and 440 and quite a few galaxies from the PGC and UGC cataloges. The nebulosity is part of the Lacerta Molecular Cloud.

There are still relatively few images of LBN438 on Astrobin. Gary Imm has as usual done his research and written a very interesting description of LBN 438 that I can recommend to those that want to know more: https://www.astrobin.com/8iq7ay/

Cheers, Göran