Hydrogen Alpha Emission Surrounding SH2-157
Characteristics:
FOV: 2.6 x 3.9 degrees
RA (J2000): 23h 16m 56s
Dec (J2000): +60 degrees 56' 17"
Position Angle: +79 degrees
Description:
The band of hydrogen alpha emission and dust that marks the summer
Milky Way is a rich source of interesting targets for
astrophotography. This is a wide field view of a particularly
lovely area, showing several objects that are well-known to
astrophotographers. These include
SH2-157 (just right of center, which looks like a lobster claw to those
of us in New England), the Bubble Nebula, NGC 7538, and open star
clusters such as M52. The above image represents a 5 hour
cumulative exposure taken in hydrogen alpha light. I also folded
into the image one of my recent higher
resolution shots of the Bubble Nebula in order to provide more
detail. Please check out the larger sized images (download may be
slow due to their large size), since there's a great deal of
interesting detail hiding amidst the hydrogen clouds. For a wide
variety of Sharpless targets, you might check out Dean Salman's website.
Photographic Details:
Date: September 4, 2008
Scope: Takahashi
FSQ106 at f5 on the Takahashi NJP
Mount
Autoguider: SBIG ST-402 with
60mm guidescope, focal length 227mm
Camera: STL11K -20C
Filters: Baader 7nm
Ha filter (50.8 mm unmounted).
Exposures: Ha- 15
x 20'. Total
exposure 5 hours.
Post-processing:
Calibrated, aligned, and Sigma Clip combined
in Maxim, followed
by DDP
in ImagesPlus (IP). Further processing in Photoshop CS (16
bit format).
Please
note: Graphics on this website may not be reproduced without
author permission.
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