Barnard 150 / SH2-129 / Fireworks galaxy with comet C/2023 E1 Atlas

[Avdhoeven]

This image shows the region around Barnard 150, aka the cosmic seahorse and SH2-129, the bat nebula. This region has a lot to offer to astrophotographers and is quite challenging to capture well.

This image was made during our holidays in the Eifel in Germany. Weather forecast was not good for this week but somehow I still got 3 (partly) clear nights in total. 

I had planned to image this region already quite some time before but when imaging the first night I noticed there was a comet in the field of view. This was comet C/2023 E1 Atlas. The evening after it was already gone from the field of view, so I guess I was lucky to have caught it.

Nikon D810a - WO Spacecat 51

Exposures;
15x300s / 51x600s

Total: 9.75h

 

[simmo39]

Nice wide view of the area. Luv in the dust. 

[peter shah]

superb capture, lovely framing and the comet is the cherry on top

[Avdhoeven]

After posting my 1st version of this image I looked further into it and noticed that the stars got somehow completely destroyed in the original size file. So I decided to do a complete reprocess while guarding the stars and nebulae more during processing.

Furthermore I was able to use an OIII dataset from Wei-Hao Wan_ that he made in 2016 from the Outers-4 nebula inside SH2-129. I got his permission to use his data (all his data can be found via astrobin and they are really a great resource!).

RGB:
Nikon D810a - WO Spacecat 51

Exposures;
15x300s / 51x600s (9.75h)

OIII (Wei-Hao [removed word]):
Nikon D800 (modified) - Borg 90FL

22x480s / 35x360s (6.5h)

Total: 16.25h

Edited August 14, 2023 by Avdhoeven

[tomato]

Great image, it confirms my suspicions that this is a very dusty region of sky!

[Avdhoeven]

Pictures are evolving sometimes when you look at them longer and see them at different screens. I made a much more 'neutral' version which I think more corresponds to reality.

 

Edited August 16, 2023 by Avdhoeven

[Avdhoeven]

After the holidays I was able to shoot one more night of H-alpha data using my new L-ultimate filter. I added this data to the image and could get even more detail in the h-alpha regions. I also cropped it to get a nice field of view for this part of the sky. I'm really happy with this unique image, which because of the comet, I can never take again in the same way