NGC 6820/ Sh2-86 and open cluster NGC 6823 in Vulpecula, SHO composite

[windjammer]

Hi

Here is NGC 6820 and open cluster NGC6823 in Vulpecula. Pic is an SHO composite (SII, Ha, OIII mapped R, G, B).  For once the colours came out about right without a huge amount of furious knob turning.  PixInsight says:

Image Plate Solver script version 5.6.6
===============================================================================
Focal distance ........... 750.73 mm
Pixel size ............... 4.54 um
Resolution ............... 1.247 arcsec/px
Field of view ............ 57' 9.0" x 45' 43.0"
Image center ............. RA: 19 43 11.446  Dec: +23 17 50.98
Image bounds:
   top-left .............. RA: 19 41 15.903  Dec: +23 43 05.63
   top-right ............. RA: 19 45 24.530  Dec: +23 38 02.30
   bottom-left ........... RA: 19 40 59.036  Dec: +22 57 32.68
   bottom-right .......... RA: 19 45 06.259  Dec: +22 52 31.07

 

 

Sh2-86 subtends 25'x12'.  The open cluster is 50 lyrs across and 6,000 lyrs distant and is ionizing the nebula, and presumably blowing the gas apart.  Bok Globules are floating around hiding nascent solar systems.  New stars are peeking out at the ends of the gas pillars as per the Eagle Nebula.  Some of the twisting gas trails look like they might be Herbig-Haro objects. An interesting region of the Milky Way.

Details:

Photograph taken in Ha, SII and OIII astronomik filters.  Total exposure time 7.8 hrs.

Ha 1x1 bin - 14x300s = 1.2hrs, 08-09 June 2023, scope West side, prime focus
SII 1x1 bin - 42x300s = 3.4hrs, 13-14 June 2023, scope East side, prime focus
OIII 1x1 bin - 38x300s = 3.2 hrs, 14-15 June 2023, scope West side, prime focus

Rig:
Imaging scope: SW Startravel 150mm F5 Refractor, Baader Diamond Track, (2.5x Celestron Luminos 2inch imaging barlow), Atik 460EX mono

Guide scope: SW Evostar 90mm F10, with guiding XY stage, ZWO 120MM camera

Guiding: 2 stage PHD: high frequency guide scope (mount tracking) and low frequency OAG image train guiding (guidescope flex)

Mount: Home made German Equatorial pillow block mount, permanently rooftop mounted.  Spring loaded DEC axis gearing.

Other gadgets: ST4 based anti vibration shutter, ST4 based PEC

Processing:
PixInsight: Biases, Darks, Flats, Lights, CosCor, Align Calibration, BXT, Crop, Linear fit, Channel Combination, SCNR(G), GradXpert, StarNet2 star removal/star layer

GradXpert: Gradient removal
Topaz DeNoise AI: Noise removal
Affinity Photo: 32 bit image processing (curves, tone map, Topaz, high pass masking, selective colour)

Simon

 

[glafnazur]

I like that a lot, nice one 👍