Monkey Head Nebula NGC2174 Sh-252

[Psychobilly]

Having been "spoilt" with 3 nights of reasonable conditions I have been accumulationg data for an Image of NGC2174 the Monkey Head Nebula. For the Sake of "art" this image is "South up"...

The Nebula is also Designated Sh-252 and is co-located with the open Cluster NGC2175 on the boundary between Orion and Gemini just where the Milky Way starts to get busy. I have chosen not to star reduce this version of image.

There is another are of Emission Nebulosity visible on the bottom edge of the image this is Sh-254.

Now the techno babble...

Baader BCF Modified Canon 1000D controlled by EOS Utils

WO Megrez 72 with WO FFIII Reducer and Hutech IDAS P2 Filter

Mounted on CPC800 XLT guided using a Meade DSI IIC on a 500mm f8 Telphoto lens and PHDGuide

Image consists of data from 3 nights with seperate Calibration Frames for each night stacked using group lists in DSS.

Entropy based Stacking was used with the image being post processed in CS3

1st nights data 29x300s ISO 800 for 2h 25m

2nd Night data 18x450s ISO 800 for 2h 15m

3rd night data 16x450s ISO800 for 2h 00m

Calibration Frames 40 each of Flats,Dark Flats,Darks for each night with Common Bias frame Master

Thanks for looking

Peter...

[ollypenrice]

Lovely on all counts; great stars, nice and round with lots of colour, and the strange isolated nebula just wondering what it's doing there... Structurally it seems to be like the Eagle and the Swan - a dark dusty patch (on the left here) with the nebula billowing out on the opposite side. You could say the same for M42 as well.

Olly

[Psychobilly]

Cheers Olly...

It makes a change to be able to get the data collection for an image "finished" in a few consecutive nights

I was going to take this to 8 hours.. but I think this will do for my "DSLR" shot and I'll head for the Jelly instead over the next few clear nights - Midnight'ish finish so it's a "work" compatible target and I could possibly leave the scope and cam gathering data somewhere in Virgo for the remainder of the night...whilst ignoring my favourite "Cygnus"...

Peter...

[JCJC]

Very nice! I think the rich star field really adds to the image, I think you made the right decision not to reduce it.

Jordan

[Psychobilly]

I have uploaded a full res version of the image here .... 9.5 MB

Peter...