LBN 438 in Lacerta

[Dan_Paris]

    Hi,

when I was young I was fascinated by the famous image  by David Malin of CG4 in Puppis, nicknamed God's Hand, a star-forming region in the shape of a hand which seems to be about to grab a distant galaxy.

I realized recently that there is a strikingly similar nebula in the northern hemisphere, LBN 438 in Lacerta, accompanied by the distant galaxy PGC 69439. I spent two nights on this object, which is quite challenging for my Bortle 7 skies 20km from downtown Paris. Overall there is 11 hours of luminance in good seeing conditions (median fwhm 1.75" and limiting magnitude 21.5 on the luminance stack), and only 60 minutes of color data.

Right-click for full resolution:

 

 

Thanks for looking and clear skies,

 

Dan

 

Technical details

200/800 custom Newtonian astrograph with Romano Zen optics and carbon fiber tube
AP900 CP4 mount on Losmandy HD tripod

ASI183mm (0.66"/pix)
TS 2.5" Riccardi-Wynne corrector
ZWO LRGB filters
Guiding : ZWO OAG + ASI120mm mini + AsiairV1
Luminance : 660 *60sec
Chrominance : 20*60sec for each R,G and B.
Conditions : Bortle 7 skies in Paris' suburbs, hazy skies and rather good seeing (1.75" median FWHM on the luminance stack)
Stacking with Siril, processing with Pixinsight

[simmo39]

Nice, looks close in shape to the witches head nebula.

[glafnazur]

That's really good, love the colour and in the hi res there are loads of faint galaxies 👍

[ollypenrice]

Lovely, and an inspiration for all who work from light polluted sites.

Olly

[Dan_Paris]

Thanks a lot @simmo39, @glafnazur and @ollypenrice for your kind words!

 

Clear skies,

 

Dan