Sh2-284

[ollypenrice]

Edit: Please scroll down for 9.75 hour version of this target.

 

This is the lowest of the emission nebulae arcing south from the Rosette. The main purpose of this RASA 8 shoot was to enhance our giant Orion-Monoceros Samyang 135 mosaic. Here we have 4 hours of OSC from the RASA 8, capture and pre-processing by Paul Kummer, my post processing. For a standalone image we might go back and shoot more data but for adding to the big mosaic this is fine.

The mosaic, with this used for enhancement, is here: https://ollypenrice.smugmug.com/Other/Emission-Nebulae/i-fL2LTdD/A

Olly

 

Edited February 6 by ollypenrice
Stated

[Pld]

Lovely image, the mosaic is tremendous, such a lot to see, the tiny horsehead, rosette, swirling dust, wonderful.

[B4silio]

Wow!

Love the details on this, but the mosaic is downright incredible! Definitely the most beautiful shot of the Orion constellation as a whole I've ever seen! Congratz to you and everyone involved for such a beautiful effort and result!

[tomato]

First class, as always. On the amazing mosaic I’m seeing a hint of a vertical band about 10-15% in from the RHS, it has a very slight curve to it. Is this part of an immense structure or is it just my eyes playing tricks?

[ollypenrice]

1 hour ago, tomato said:

First class, as always. On the amazing mosaic I’m seeing a hint of a vertical band about 10-15% in from the RHS, it has a very slight curve to it. Is this part of an immense structure or is it just my eyes playing tricks?

It may be an aritfact, I really don't know. Without capturing the whole section in a single, very short FL frame, I don't think we can ever be certain. Always with these monster mosaics the overall lighting is the hardest part to get right. One issue comes from the stitching and another from a tile pattern which is often latent in the starless image after StarXt. I do my best to cosmetically correct them when I'm confident that they are, indeed artifacts. Since star removal is essential in lens images, to my mind, we must await tweaks to the software.

I'm sure the background sky is far less even to the west of Barnard's loop. The successive supernovae which created it have presumably swept the sky in a sphere roughly centred on the Trapezium.

I also wonder if the region in shot is being swept by a particle wind from the west. This may have destroyed a western half of the loop and also shaped the Meissa Nebula.

Olly

[ollypenrice]

With more than double the data (Thanks Paul!) it looks like this:

Olly

[gorann]

Nice to see it in RGB Olly! Your mosaic is excellent, and will provide a useful reference.