Flying Bat and Squid and Seahorse Dark Nebula, Sh2-129, Ou4, and B 150
This is an image of the Flying Bat and Squid, Sharpless 2-129 and Ou4, and the Seahorse Dark Nebula, Barnard 150 (in the lower right corner). In North America, these objects are in the northeastern summer sky, in the constellation Cepheus, near the Garnet Star and the Elephant Trunk Nebula, IC 1396. The flying bat is the red part of the image, predominantly hydrogen-alpha emission, and the giant squid is the teal-colored object embedded in the bat, a very faint OIII emission. The squid is so faint it was not discovered until 2011 by the French astrophotographer Nicolas Outters. The squid represents what is thought to be spectacular outflows from the star system HR 8119, a very hot (29,000K) B star near the center of the squid. The bat and squid are thought to be about 2300 light years from Earth, making the squid alone about 50 light years in extent in the long dimension!
This image was made using a Takahashi Epsilon 160ED telescope, Optec-LEO focuser, Chroma 3 nm narrowband Hydrogen-alpha and Oxygen III filters, Chroma LRGB filters, and a ZWO ASI6200MM Pro monochrome, cooled, full frame CMOS camera. A total of 9 hours and 31 minutes of integration was used, over 7.5 hours for OIII alone, 151 3 min exposures. Processing was done in PixInsight, and Photoshop, including specialized processes BlurXterminator and StarXterminator. Extreme stretching was done using Generalized Hyperbolic Stretch.
To get an ideal of how faint the squid is, I estimated for my telescope optics and camera (1.46 arcsec pixels) an OIII photon was detected on average only every 208 seconds. So in some exposures of 180 seconds no OIII signal was detected in a given pixel. In the total integration time of 27,180 seconds, this means on average 130 photons per pixel were detected (in the brightest part of the squid). At an estimated total telescope efficiency of 60% this is a signal of 78 electrons. This image gives real meaning to the phrase “counting ancient photons.”
Sh2-129_OU4_LRGB_Ha_OIII_10Hr_4096_230617_RQFugate
Flying Bat and Squid and Seahorse Dark Nebula, Sh2-129, Ou4, and B 150
This is an image of the Flying Bat and Squid, Sharpless 2-129 and Ou4, and the Seahorse Dark Nebula, Barnard 150 (in the lower right corner). In North America, these objects are in the northeastern summer sky, in the constellation Cepheus, near the Garnet Star and the Elephant Trunk Nebula, IC 1396. The flying bat is the red part of the image, predominantly hydrogen-alpha emission, and the giant squid is the teal-colored object embedded in the bat, a very faint OIII emission. The squid is so faint it was not discovered until 2011 by the French astrophotographer Nicolas Outters. The squid represents what is thought to be spectacular outflows from the star system HR 8119, a very hot (29,000K) B star near the center of the squid. The bat and squid are thought to be about 2300 light years from Earth, making the squid alone about 50 light years in extent in the long dimension!
This image was made using a Takahashi Epsilon 160ED telescope, Optec-LEO focuser, Chroma 3 nm narrowband Hydrogen-alpha and Oxygen III filters, Chroma LRGB filters, and a ZWO ASI6200MM Pro monochrome, cooled, full frame CMOS camera. A total of 9 hours and 31 minutes of integration was used, over 7.5 hours for OIII alone, 151 3 min exposures. Processing was done in PixInsight, and Photoshop, including specialized processes BlurXterminator and StarXterminator. Extreme stretching was done using Generalized Hyperbolic Stretch.
To get an ideal of how faint the squid is, I estimated for my telescope optics and camera (1.46 arcsec pixels) an OIII photon was detected on average only every 208 seconds. So in some exposures of 180 seconds no OIII signal was detected in a given pixel. In the total integration time of 27,180 seconds, this means on average 130 photons per pixel were detected (in the brightest part of the squid). At an estimated total telescope efficiency of 60% this is a signal of 78 electrons. This image gives real meaning to the phrase “counting ancient photons.”
Sh2-129_OU4_LRGB_Ha_OIII_10Hr_4096_230617_RQFugate