The Flying Bat is the orange-ish (Hydrogen alpha) semicircle, and the Giant Squid is the blue (O-III) cylindrical object. The Bat was bright, and therefore easier to capture and process. The Squid, however, is just barely brighter than the Bortle 7 sky in my backyard, and was much more difficult to process. The stars were captured separately in RGB.

ZWO ASI6200MM-P/EFW 7 x 2" (Ha, O-III and RGB)

Tele Vue Nagler-Petzval (4" f/4.3)

Losmandy G11

Processed in PixInsight. Narrowband images mixed with NarrowbandNormalization.

Ha: 9 x 600s, 1:30 integration time

OIII: 65 x 600s, 10:50 integration time

RGB: 12 x 60s per channel, 0:36 integration time

Total integration time: 14:26

**STARLESS VERSION OF THE ELEPHANT'S TRUNK NEBULA**

Well this is my first image since January this year and to get my Mojo back (could be a expensive way of doing it) I’m trying a new telescope with focal reducer to get over 2° field of view. This scope is a new/refurbished “Explore Scientific 102mm F7 APO Carbon” kindly on loan/test from Kerin at Telescope house with option to buy. I hope I’ve done the Telescope justice with my image.

Note:

I plan to be at the Herstmonceux astronomy festival between the 2nd & 4th Sep 2022 and can be found hanging around the Telescope House stand or the beer tent later in the day.

IC 1396A also commonly known as the “Elephant’s Trunk Nebula” is a star forming region some 2,400 Light Years from earth. The bright rim is the surface of the dense cloud that is being illuminated and ionized by a bright, massive star. The Nebula is now thought to containing several very young stars less than 100,000 yr old.

EQUIPMENT:-

Explore Scientific 102mm F7 APO Carbon

Explore Scientific 0.7 Focal Reducer

Skywatcher AZ-EQ6 GT

ZWO ASI1600mm-Cool cmos camera

Orion Mini Auto Guide

Astronomik 6nm Ha Filter

Astronomik 6nm Oiii Filter

Chip Temp Cooled to -20 degC

IMAGING DETAILS:-

IC1396A Elephant's Trunk Nebula (Cepheus)

Gain 139 (Unit Gain)

Dithering

36 Ha subs@240sec (2h 24min)

30 Oiii subs@240sec (2h 00min)

Total imaging Time 4h 24min

20 Darks

25 Flats

PROCESSING/GUIDING SOFTWARE:-

APT "Astro Photograph Tools"

DSS

PS CS2

The rotten fish nebula

LDN 1251 est une nébuleuse complexe de la constellation de Céphée, contenant des poussières et des gaz réfléchissants. Son surnom est la nébuleuse du poisson pourri. L'acronyme “LDN” fait référence au Lynd's Catalog of Dark Nebulae (catalogue des nébuleuses sombres).

LDN 1251 is a complex nebula in the constellation Cepheus, containing reflective dust and gas. Its nickname is the Rotten Fish Nebula. The acronym “LDN” refers to Lynd's Catalog of Dark Nebulae.

T315 DIY - A7S MOD - EQ6-R

EXP: 700×20s @3200iso

LACHAU 26560 (FRANCE)

Result_15500s POISSON POURRI 2024 08 02 17 a 13 degres T315 A7S 20sx700 3200iiso SIRIL1 etal couleur manuel GIMP 1

The Ghost Nebula (designated Sh2-136, VdB 141) is a reflection nebula located in the constellation Cepheus.(Wikipedia)

I thought that would be a nice space picture for the upcomming halloween

More Astrophotography at : telescopius.com/profile/k-bahr

and on Instagram: www.instagram.com/astrophotography_in_the_north/

A beautiful area of the sky located in the constellation Cepheus. This wide field image includes the Elephant Trunk nebula, Barnard 169, Barnard 171, and the Garnet Star.

Taken with a QHY 533C, Rokinon 135mm f/2 (at f/2.2), mounted on a Sky Adventurer GTi. 90x2 min subs gives a total integration time of 3 hours.

ASI 294 MC PRO.

72 ED Skywatcher con reductor/aplanador 0.85.

Star Adventurer 2i.

Guiado Asi 120mm Mini.

Ganancia 123/ Offset 30 -10ºc

L-Extreme 86x300s

Bortle 8.

PixInsight,

First of all, Merry Christmas to all astro folks and friends out there.

This post is about my maiden voyage with the AG14 astrograph (Recently acquired Orion Optics large Newt)

After quite some time spent on a learning to colimate the the beast using the Catseye system and other miscellaneous odds and ends required for basic setup, such as, the need for an additional counterweight. The clouds finally cleared last night and I was able to run some test shots with the new Astrograph. This image is made of a stack 30 un-calibrated 1800 sec bin x 2 subs.

Imaging telescope: AG14 astrograph 1330mm F3.8

Imaging camera: 9.2mp Sony SX814

Mount: Software Bisque Paramount MX

Focus was manually set up once with a mask and the system ran uninterrupted for the night. I am waiting for a Baader steel drive to arrive which will allow full focus automaton.

Located about 5000 light years from Earth, the center image shows the Rosette star formation region

LDN 1251 - small molecular cloud in the constellation Cepheus. In addition to the dark nebula in this picture is also seen several PGC galaxies that shine through the interstellar dust. Also in this picture I have identified five Herbig–Haro objects.

This picture was photographed during september in Petrivske village, Ukraine.

Equipment: home assembled reflector 10 in., f/3.8

Mount WhiteSwan-180 with a control system «Eqdrive Standart», camera QSI-583wsg with TS 2.5″ 0.95x Wynne corrector. Off-axis guidecamera QHY5L-II.

LRGB filter set Baader Planetarium.

L = 37 * 900 seconds, RGB = 28 * 400-600 seconds in each filter, bin.2. Total of 20 hours.

FWHM source (in the filter L) 2.15″-4.72″, Sum in L channel - 2.95"

The height above the horizon from 64 ° to 48 °, scale = 1.25"/ pixel.

Processed Pixinsight 1.8 and Photoshop CS6

The Veil Nebula is a cloud of heated and ionized gas and dust in the constellation Cygnus. It constitutes the visible portions of the Cygnus Loop (radio source W78, or Sharpless 103), a large but relatively faint supernova remnant. The source supernova exploded circa 3,000 BC to 6,000 BC, and the remnants have since expanded to cover an area roughly 3 degrees in diameter (about 6 times the diameter, or 36 times the area, of the full moon). The distance to the nebula is not precisely known, but Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) data supports a distance of about 1,470 light-years.

The Hubble Space Telescope captured several images of the nebula. The analysis of the emissions from the nebula indicate the presence of oxygen, sulfur, and hydrogen. This is also one of the largest, brightest features in the x-ray sky.

The Eastern Veil (also known as Caldwell 33), whose brightest area is NGC 6992, trailing off farther south into NGC 6995 (together with NGC 6992 also known as "Network Nebula") and IC 1340. Above the west end of NGC6992 is showcase.

Taken at Sugar Grove Nature Center, McLean, IL on 7/8/2017

Image type: Narrowband HA-OIII (RB) 8x600ea The green channel was synthetized.

Hardware: AT8RC, SBIG ST8300M

Software: Nebulosity, CCDStack, Photoshop CS6

The Ghost Nebula Sh2-136, VdB 141 is a reflection nebula located in the constellation Cepheus.

It lies near the cluster NGC 7023. The Ghost Nebula is referred to as a globule and over 2 light-years across. There are several stars embedded, whose emissions make the nebula shine in brownish colour.

Captured by David Wills at PixelSkies, Castillejar, Spain www.pixelskiesastro.com

Lum 99 x 600s

Red 163 x 180s

Green 182 x 180s

Blue 168 x 180s

42 hours 9 mins in total.

Equipment used:

Telescope: Takahashi Baby Q FSQ-85ED F5.3

Camera: Xpress Trius SX-694 Pro Mono Cooled to -10C

Image Scale: 2.08

Guiding: OAG

Filters: Astronomik Lum,Red,Green,Blue

Mount: iOptron CEM60 "Standard" GOTO Centre Balanced Equatorial Mount

Image Acquisition: Voyager

Observatory control: Lunatico Dragonfly

Stacking and Calibrating: Pixinsight

Processing: Pixinsight 1.8, Photoshop CC

This is my fourth and final summer target. Luckily I was able to finish everything that I planned and started back in July. Here is my longest integration time too at 21 hours in HaRGB

Telescope: William Optics GT71

Mount: Sky Watcher HEQ5

Camera: ZWO ASI183MM Pro

Filters: Astrodon LRGB

Frames

H-alpha: 169x300" (14h)

RGB: 130x180" (6h 30')

RGB: 60x30" (30')

Total Integration: 21h

www.astrobin.com/users/SeanRichardson/

A frighten (most probably attacked by predator) Dingy Bush Brown (Mycalesis perseus cepheus) with slightly broken wings at Canberra.

*Note: More pics of Butterflies and Moths in my Butterflies and Moths Album.

This my interpretation of the Hubble Heritage data NGC 2174 in Multi-Band Colour.

The original data can be found here if you want to have a go :)

hla.stsci.edu/cgi-bin/display?image=hlsp_heritage_hst_wfc...

To commemorate HST's 24th anniversary, the Hubble Heritage Team has observed a dramatic dust pillar in NGC2174 with the WFC3 infrared camera. This new view is strikingly different than previous Hubble images obtained in visible light with the Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (Proposal 9091, PI: Hester).

The new WFC3 observations were obtained in February 2014 and include 4 tiles in a 2x2 mosaic pattern, where a small shift between tiles allows for the removal of detector artifacts. (See Proposal 13623, PI: Levay for details.) The broad band F105W like emoticon, F125W (J), and F160W (H) filters highlight unique physical processes occurring in and around the nebula, and they combine to produce a dramatic new color image.

archive.stsci.edu/prepds/heritage/ngc2174/

For once the rows of white plastic bags dumped pending engineering work don't matter much, then echo the white unit. 5Q08 Ilford - Kilmarnock unit move.

ROG operated Class 37 No.37884 ‘Cepheus’ hauling new West Midlands Railway Class 730 No.730002 at Barrow upon Soar. Running as 5Q66 10:35 Loughborough Brush - Oxley Car. M.D. 15-12-2022.

The Wizard Nebula is an emission nebula that surrounds the open star cluster NGC 7380 in the constellation Cepheus. The nebula is known for its unique shape, resembling the appearance of a medieval sorcerer. The active star forming region lies at a distance of 7,200 light years from Earth and has an apparent magnitude of 7.2. It has a radius of 100 light years and occupies 25 arc minutes of the apparent sky. It has the designation Sh2-142 in the Sharpless catalog of H II regions.

www.constellation-guide.com/wizard-nebula/

-----------------------------------

PixInsight Processing

Linear Processing

------

* SHO Processing Flow (Remove Green Flow) *

Automatic Background Extraction on individual frames

Channel Combination (Sii to Red, Ha to Green, Oiii to Blue)

Dyanmic Crop to remove bad edges

Dynamic Background Extraction.

NoiseExterminator AI to remove noise

EZSoftStretch script to bring to Non-Linear state (Target Median = .25)

Non Linear Processing

---------------------------

SCNR to remove Green

Image Invert to make Magenta become Green

SCNR to remove Green (What was magenta)

Image Invert to make image normal

Removed Stars with Starnet++ V2

HDRMultiscaleTransform to bring out contrast

Curves - Slight S-curve to slightly darken background and lighten enbula

LocalHistogramEqualization - Kernel Radius = 25 to bring out some contrast

LocalHistogramEqualization - Kernel Radius = 75 to bring out more contrast

MultiscaleLinearTransform to sharpen

Added stars back in with PixelMath

EZ Star Reduction script to reduce stars

(All 120 sec Subs)

Filter Subs Hrs

S2 28 1.8

Ha 56 0.9

O3 53 1.9

TOT 137 4.6

Alrai o Errai (γ Cephei) è una stella doppia situata nella costellazione di Cefeo a 45 anni luce dalla Terra. Il suo nome deriva dall'arabo الراعي ar-rā'ī, che significa Il pastore.

Nella foto qui pubblicata, la stella è segnata da quel pallino rosso in alto a sinistra.

Perché questa stella è importante oggi? Perché dista esattamente 45 anni luce dalla Terra... ed oggi è il mio 45esimo compleanno... :) se stando su quella stella potessi oggi guardare verso la Terra, potrei "vedermi" nascere di nuovo...

Con questo pensiero, perso nel tempo e nello spazio, mi auguro una splendida giornata :)

ciao

NGC 7129 è una nebulosa a riflessione nella costellazione di Cefeo: ha dimensioni apparenti di 7'x7' e si trova alla distanza di 3300 anni luce.

La nebulosa viene illuminata dalla luce delle stelle di un ammasso stellare contenuto al suo interno: una survey professionale ha stimato che l'ammasso è costituito da più di 130 stelle con meno di 1 milione di anni di vita, quindi stelle molto giovani astronomicamente parlando.

Tutto il campo attorno alla nebulosa è ricco di polveri interstellari.

(testo adattato da Wikipedia)

----------

NGC 7129 is a reflection nebula with dimension 7’x7’ located 3300 light years away in the constellation Cepheus.

A young open cluster is responsible for illuminating the surrounding nebula.

A professional survey indicated that the cluster contains more than 130 stars less than 1 million years old, so very youg stars.

All the area around NGC 7129 is rich in dust.

(text adapted from Wikipedia)

Technical data

GSO RC12 Truss - Aperture 304mm, focal lenght 2432mm, f/8

Mount 10Micron GM2000 HPSII

Camera ZWO ASI 2600 MM Pro with filter wheel 7 positions

Filters Astrodon Gen2 E-Serie Tru-Balance 50mm unmounted LRGB

Guiding system ZWO OAG-L with guide camera ASI 174MM

Exposure details:

L 44x300", R 13x300", G 14x300", B 13x300" all in bin3 -15C

Total integration time: 7h

Acquisition: Voyager, PHD2

Processing: Pixinsight 1.8, Photoshop CS5, StarXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator

SQM-L: 20.9   

Location: Promiod (Aosta Valley, Italy), own remote observatory

Date 3/4/23 August, 22 September 2022

www.robertomarinoni.com

I finally got the chance for a few nights this month on this wonderful target: A beautiful, if faint, emission nebula between Cepheus and Lacerta and probably my favourite nebula to date - The very small planetary nebula (bottom left) is Abell 79. Abell 79, "The 6 Nebula", is estimated to be at a distance of 5900 to 11,360 lys away. It measures approx 1 arc minute and is magnitude 15. Sh2-132 lies at an estimated distance of about 10,000-12,000 lys and is ca. 40 arc minutes in size. The image also contains the very small planetary nebula G101.5-00.6, which lies to the right of the blue O-III region.

Ha 38x5min/ISO400 - Red

O-III 49x5min/ISO1600 - Blue

S-II 37x5min/ISO1600 - Yellow

Total (10+ hrs)

Celestron RASA 11"

10Micron GM1000 HPS

SIGMA fp L (monochrome)

Stars in 100% view from Ha integration

Star colour: TS94EDPH / 10Micron GM1000 HPS / Sigma fp L

Calibration/Registration/Integration/Background correction in AstroPixelProcessor all further processing to taste in Photoshop.

100% View

Sh2-115 from the Sharpless catalogue is a region of Emission Nebula located in the constellation Cepheus at a distance of 7500 light-years from Earth. Also Of interest in this area is the Planetary Nebula Sh2-116, close to the famous North America Nebula.

Captured recently in Narrowband and Broadband using a QHY600 60 Megapixel Full Frame Monochrome CMOS camera mounted on a Takahashi 130 FSQ, courtesy of QHYCCD.

This setup is available immediately for people wanting to subscribe to Grand Mesa Observatory's system 1.

grandmesaobservatory.com/equipment-rentals.

In this Hubble Palette version (SHO) the H-Alpha is mapped to green channel, SII is mapped to red channel and OIII is mapped to the blue channel. The raw data was preprocessed using Pixinsight, the stars were removed using a tool called Starxterminator and the stars were later replaced during Post Processing in Photoshop CC with the more naturally colored stars from the RGB data.

Captured bin 2x2 over 4 nights in October 2022 for a total acquisition time of 13.73 hours.

Captured and processed by: Terry Hancock

Location: GrandMesaObservatory.com Purdy Mesa, Colorado

Dates of Capture October 13, 15, 17, 18 2022

HA 175 min, 35 x 300 sec

OIII 220 min, 44 x 300 sec

SII 165 min, 33 x 300 sec

RED 88 min, 44 x 120 sec

GREEN 88 min, 44 x 120 sec

BLUE 88 min, 44 x 120 sec

Narrowband Filters by Chroma

Camera: QHY600 Monochrome CMOS Photographic version

Gain 26, Offset 76 in Read Mode Photographic 16 bit, bin 2x2

Calibrated with Dark, Dark/Flat Frames

Optics: Walter Holloway's Takahashi FSQ 130 APO Refractor @ F5

Mount: Paramount ME

Image Scale:2.39 arcsec/pix

Image Acquisition software Maxim DL6, Pre Processing Pixinsight and Post Processed in Photoshop CC

Another trip into space last night, this time to Sharpless 2-132, aka the Lion Nebula. Sh2-132 is a faint emission nebula on the Cepheus/Lacerta border, estimated to be at a distance of about 10000 - 12000 light years from Earth. This shot comprises 93 x 5 minute shots to get the required signal to noise data required to visualise the nebula structures.

ZWO ASI2600MC Pro camera, William Optics GT81 scope with WO Flat 6AIII flattener, ZWO ASIAir Pro guided, Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro mount, L-eXtreme filter.

93 lights of 300sec at gain 100 and -10degC, 40 darks, 50 flats and 50 dark flats.

Bortle 4 skies

Stacked in DSS and processed in Photoshop with final touches in Lightroom.

Explore 07 October 2021

This fascinating reflection nebula is located in the constellation Cepheus. It is illuminated by the central star which has approximately 10 times the mass of our sun. Microscopic dust particles scatter the blue light given off by this star. Surrounding this beautiful blue glow are reddish dust clouds – so dense that they obscure the stars in the background.

OTA: Skywatcher Esprit 120

Camera: Atik 460ex w/EFW2 filter wheel

Filters: Astrodon Gen2 ESeries LRGB

Mount: AP Mach1

Exposure: L:R:G:B 302:90:90:108 (m)

Data obtained: June/July 2016

The Lion Nebula Captured December and January in Narrowband using the new QHY600 60 Megapixel Full Frame Monochrome CMOS camera mounted on the Takahashi 130 FSQ that we have the honor of testing for QHYCCD.

This setup is available immediately for people wanting to subscribe to Grand Mesa Observatory's system 1.

grandmesaobservatory.com/equipment-rentals

In this Hubble Palette version (SHO) the H-Alpha is mapped to green, SII is mapped to red and OIII is mapped to the blue channel.

Captured over 5 nights in December 2020 and January 2021 for a total acquisition time of 9.5 hours.

The Lion Nebula, otherwise known as Sharpless 132 and LBN 471 is an Emission nebula in the constellation of Cepheus named after Cepheus, king of Aethiopia in Greek mythology, lying somewhere between 10 to 12,000 light years from us.

Technical Details

Captured and processed by: Terry Hancock

Location: GrandMesaObservatory.com Purdy Mesa, Colorado

Dates of Capture December 8th, 21st 2020, January 1st, 7th and 19th 2021

HA 210 min 21 x 600 sec

OIII 180 min 18 x 600 sec

SII 180 min 18 x 600 sec

Narrowband Filters by Chroma

Camera: QHY600 Monochrome CMOS Photographic version

Gain 60, Offset 76 in Read Mode Photographic 16 bit

Calibrated with Dark, Bias and Flat Frames

Optics: Walter Holloway's Takahashi FSQ 130 APO Refractor @ F5

Image Scale: 1.19 arcsec/pix

Final image cropped to 7046x4873 pixels

FOV 2d 20' 52.8" x 1d 37' 25.9"

EQ Mount: Paramount ME

Image Acquisition software Maxim DL6, Pre Processing and Starnet in Pixinsight Post Processed in Photoshop CC

Van den Bergh (vdB) 149 and 150 are blue reflection nebulae in the constellation Cepheus.

Captured by David Wills at PixelSkies, Castillejar, Spain www.pixelskiesastro.com

Lum 45x600Secs

Red 51x300Secs

Green 40x600Secs

Blue 30x300Secs

17 hours 35 mins in total.

Equipment used:

Telescope: Takahashi Baby Q FSQ-85ED F5.3

Camera: Xpress Trius SX-694 Pro Mono Cooled to -10C

Image Scale: 2.08

Guiding: OAG

Filters: Astronomik LRGB

Mount: iOptron CEM60 "Standard" GOTO Centre Balanced Equatorial Mount

Image Acquisition: Voyager

Observatory control: Lunatico Dragonfly

Stacking and Calibrating: Pixinsight

Processing: Pixinsight 1.8

The image shows a region in Cepheus that contains an interesting mixture of dark and bright nebulae.. The giant old supernova rest SNR G 110.3 +11.3 that is traversing the frame is on of the most near SNRs with a distance of about 1300 light years. In front of it the dark nebula B 175 is crowned by the reflection nebula VDB 152. B 175 shows a dark gloom in Ha light. VBD 152 exhibits an inner stucture showing bright arcs. of matter.

The lower right part of the frame shows the emission nebula Delgel-Hartl-5 (DeHt-5) shows emissions in Ha and OIII wavelenght that are induced by a white dwarf (WD 2218+706).

The whole frame is streaked by faint wispy dust lanes. In the 12 o'clock direction and in the upper left of the frame a y-shaped and a globular structure are glowing in Ha-light.

An emission nebula in Cepheus

science.nasa.gov/ic-1396-emission-nebula-cepheus

ROG 37884 runs through March Station with 0L46 Derby RTC - Ely Papworth sidings light engine move 30th April 2025.

La nébuleuse du Lion (Sh2-132) est une grande nébuleuse en émission faible visible dans la constellation de Céphée. Elle est située à une distance d'environ 3 200 pc (∼10 400 années-lumières).

Dans le coin en bas à gauche on aperçoit aussi la nébuleuse planétaire Abell 79.

The Lion Nebula (sh2-132) is a weak emission nebula in the constellation of Cepheus. It is 10 400 light years away from us.

The planetary nebula Abell 79 is also visible in the image (bottom left corner).

Acquisition:

Rising Cam IMX571 color + Zenithstar73

iOptron CEM26 + iPolar

ZWO ASI224MC + WO Uniguide 120mm

NINA & PHD2

Séances:

-23 et 27 août 2023 : Filtre IDAS NBZ / 300 sec x 56

-1er septembre 2023 : Filtre UV-IR Cut / 120 sec x 34

-3, 4 et 5 septembre 2023 : Filtre IDAS NBZ / 300 sec x 69

Traitement/processing :

Siril, StarNet++ & Gimp

@Astrobox 2.0 / St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Québec

AstroM1

(rsi6x.v1)

7 x 4-minute exposures, ISO 3200, f/6.25; Canon EOS 600D and Sky-Watcher 80mm ED refractor telescope. Frames stacked in Deep Sky Stacker; curves adjusted in Canon Digital Photo Professional; colour balance adjusted and noise reduced with Cyberlink PhotoDirector.

Europhoenix class 37/8 locomotive 37884 'Cepheus' on hire to ROG hauling Abellio Greater Anglia class 317 EMU's 317654 & 317651 is seen passing through Farnborough (Main) station, Hampshire whilst working 5Q42, 09:33 (dep. 09:20) Ely Mlf Papworth Sidings - Eastleigh Arlington on 15/04/2021, both units are for scrap.

Van den Bergh 152 aka The Wolf's Cave is a blue reflection nebula in the constellation of Cepheus. It is roughly 1400 light years away. The dust trailing the nebula is cataloged as Barnard 175. The small nebula(top right) is DeHt5.

11" Celestron EdgeHD w/Hyperstar (F/2)

QHY23M

2 panel mosaic:

Images acquired 9/12, 9/22 & 9/24/16

2-Ha-12x300sec

2-LUM-20x120sec

2-RGB-12x120sec/each

5h 44min

Behind 37884 Cepheus, happy units 365514 and 365534 head for store, passing Whittlesea with 5Q23 Letchworth CSD to Doncaster Belmont Down Yard.

LDN 1235 - 1251 and the dust cirrus in the north region in Cepheus.

Credit: Giuseppe Donatiello

For the composition were used data taken through the array of 135mm telephoto lenses operating in unison. The total of about 4 hours of exposure was obtained in about half the time by adding the data of the two camera bodies.

The area shown is the common one. Processing with Luminar 4-AI. PSP X8 from sum with RegiStar 9.

Running about 40 mins late, 37 884 'Cepheus' hauls a Southeastern 465/466 EMU to Doncaster through Longhedge, approaching Latchmere Junction. The lines into Victoria can be seen running across in the background. Needless to say, the sound this working made was pretty wonderful!

www.starkeeper.it/NGC7822B.htm

Hot, young stars and cosmic pillars of gas and dust seem to crowd into NGC 7822. At the edge of a giant molecular cloud toward the northern constellation Cepheus, the glowing star forming region lies about 3,000 light-years away. Within the nebula, bright edges and dark shapes stand out in this colorful skyscape. The image includes data from narrowband filters, mapping emission from atomic oxygen, hydrogen, and red,blue and green filters. The atomic emission is powered by energetic radiation from the central hot stars. Their powerful winds and radiation sculpt and erode the denser pillar shapes and clear out a characteristic cavity light-years across the center of the natal cloud. Stars could still be forming inside the pillars by gravitational collapse but as the pillars are eroded away, any forming stars will ultimately be cutoff from their reservoir of star stuff. This field of view spans over 40 light-years at the estimated distance of NGC 7822 [Text adapted from APOD]

Optics: Takahashi FSQ-106EDXIII F/5 530mm. - APO Refractor

Mount: AP Mach1 GTO

Camera: Moravian G4-16000 Mark II

Filters: Astrodon E Series Gen II LRGBH 50mm squared

Guiding Systems: SX Lodestar

Dates/Times: 2020-2021

Location: Pragelato - Turin / Italy

Exposure Details: H:R:G:B => 360:60:50:50 = > (24x15):(12x5):(10x5):(10x5) [num x minutes]

Cooling Details: -25 °C

Acquisition: Voyager Astrophotography Automation

Processing: CCDStack2+, PS CC, StarXTerminator

Mean FWHM: 1.21 / 2.05

SQM-L: 20.21

The Iris Nebula in the constellation Cepheus is a bright reflection nebula at a distance of 1300 light years away and is 6 light years across.

TS 130 f7

SW EQ6R pro

ZWO 1600mm mono

ZWO LRGB Filters

8 pos FW

Starlight field flattener

Orion 50mm guide scope w SS auto guider

L 85x180s

R 35x120s

G 35x120s

B 35x120s

Shot over 3 separate nights

My facebook page, thanks.

Press L to view in light box, F to fave this photo.

This is a framing of the rich complex of nebulosity in and around the constellations of northern Cygnus and southern Cepheus, in a blend of "white light" images and images shot through a deep red hydrogen-alpha filter that isolates the red emission line from the gas clouds, bringing them out in much more detail than is otherwise possible.

The North America Nebula (NGC 7000) and adjacent Pelican Nebula (IC 5070) are below centre beside blue Deneb. The Gamma Cygni complex, IC 1318, is at lower right. The main nebula at top left is IC 1396 in Cepheus. The Cocoon Nebula lies at the end of the long dark strreak, B168, left of centre. The wispy streak at bottom left is Sharpless 2-126, aka the Great Lacerta Nebula, though it does not look too great here! It is one of many faint arcs and patches of emission nebulosity that litter the field. The dark area below Deneb is the Northern Coal Sack. The darker region above Deneb is the Funnel Cloud Nebula, aka LeGentil 3. The bright area at lower right in the Milky Way is the Cygnus Starcloud, a region less obscured by dark interstellar dust.

This is a blend of: a stack of 14 x 5-minute exposures at f/2 and ISO 3200 with the Canon Ra equipped with a clip-in Astronomik 12nm H-alpha filter, plus a stack of 6 x 2-minute exposures at f/2.8 and ISO 1600, with the latter shot through a front-mounted URTH broadband filter to help block skyglow and gradients. All with the Canon RF 28-70mm lens at 50mm and on the Star Adventurer tracker for tracked but unguided shots taken from home October 2, 2022 on a very clear and mild night. Dew spoiled the last of the white light images, thus I used only the first 6 for the stack. The dew added the natural star glows. The initial H-alpha shots were taken with the waxing crecent Moon still up.

All stacking, alignment and blending in Photoshop. Luminosity masks applied with Lumenzia. The H-alpha stack was layered in with a Screen blend mode and with its own adjustment layers and masks, and colorized with a Hue-Saturation layer. The H-alpha data was not added by replacing the red channel, as that provides no control of the blend of the H-alpha image. A mild and masked Orton Glow effect added with Luminar AI.

ccd: Moravian G3-16200 with EFW + OAG

filters: Optolong LRGB and Astrodon 5-nm Ha/O3

telescope: TEC 140 f/7

mount: 10Micron GM2000 QCI

guider: Lodestar X2

exposure: L 13x20min + RG 7x12min + B 27x12min + Ha 17x30min (all 1x1)

location: Les Granges, 900 m (Hautes Alpes, France)

software: TheSkyX Pro, CCD Commander, Pixinsight, PS CS5

date: 17 Dec 2018 - 10 Jul 2019

37884 "Cepheus" tows 769434 through Newton le Willows with 5Q08 11.29 Allerton Depot - Kilmarnock Bonnyton Depot on Monday 7 April 2025.

2020 was an unusual year as we all know. It was a very busy year for me working on a 3D Animated Motion Capture Series and Music Video from home, and as a result I didn't manage to image much.

About the Nebula:

The Elephant's Trunk Nebula is a concentration of interstellar gas and dust with-in the much larger ionized gas region IC 1396 (located in the constellation Cepheus), about 2,400 light-years away from Earth.

Reprocessing old data:

I don't often do this, but decided to reprocess old data from 2017 in the SHO Palette (SII, Hα & OIII). IC 1396 was imaged on my first "budget friendly" Telescope (a 6" GSO Newtonian Astrograph). This was one of my first attempts at Narrowband Astrophotography, and the data that I captured back then was less than ideal, but a nice challenge to process. It is all part of the never ending lifelong learning experience.

I would like to revisit the IC 1396 region again, and image the very interesting surrounding structure with my wide-field APO Refractor Telescope. It is interesting to look back and see what you've learnt (which is why I've always kept my old learning images as a record).

Wavelengths of the Electromagnetic Spectrum of Light:

Hydrogen-Alpha (656.3nm)

Oxygen-III (500.7nm)

Sulfur-II (672.4nm)

Astrometry Info:

Center RA, Dec: 323.737, 57.633

Center RA, hms: 21h 34m 56.951s

Center Dec, dms: +57° 37' 59.617"

Size: 46.8 x 60.6 arcmin

Radius: 0.638 deg

Pixel scale: 2.02 arcsec/pixel

Orientation: Up is 269 degrees E of N

View an Annotated Sky Chart of this image.

View this image in the WorldWideTelescope.

Processing:

Pre-Processing and Linear workflow in PixInsight, and finished in Photoshop (Starnet++ was also handy).

Gear and Tech Card:

See original 2017 image for more detail.

Flickr Explore:

2020-10-14

Photo usage and Copyright:

Medium-resolution photograph licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Terms (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). For High-resolution Royalty Free (RF) licensing, contact me via my site: Contact.

Martin

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NGC 6946 or the Fireworks Galaxy, is a face-on intermediate spiral galaxy with a small bright nucleus, whose location in the sky straddles the boundary between the northern constellations of Cepheus and Cygnus. Its distance from Earth is about 22.5 million light-years. Lying 2/3 of a degree to the NW is the open cluster NGC 6939 which is around 4000 light years distant. Conditions have been poor recently but directly overhead, conditions were slightly better. Imaged over 4 nights the 11th,15th, 16th and 26th of December 2017. Thanks to Mark Blundell for pointing out to me that Supernova SN2017eaw is still visible on one of the spiral arms.

NEQ6 PRO

TSAPO130Q @f/5

Canon 70D modified

Astronomik CLS CCD clip in filter

Guided using Lodestar x2 mono CCD

20 x 300sec subs ISO 800

40 x 480sec subs ISO 800

13 x 600sec subs ISO 400

Totalling 9hrs10min.

Processed using Pixinsight and Photoshop.

moonrocksastro.com/index.php/2016/08/31/unfolding-space-2/

Facebook | Instagram | Moonrocksastro

This is the culmination of my exploration of Cygnus from my back yard, my summer 2016 mosaic. It has been an adventure into the dark areas of the undulating mountainous nebular complex around Gamma Cygni. I was surprised to find the forgotten Weinberger Planetary Nebula and amazed by the giant nebula structures . The mosaic consists of 8 panels with and integration of around 200 hours of photography over July and August and two weeks of processing. I hope you find it as interesting, as I found the adventure of capturing it.

The Iris Nebula (NGC 7023) is front and center of this widefield image of this quite dusty area of the constellation Cepheus taken at Grand Mesa Observatory over the nights of 9/24-9/25 2022.

The Iris Nebula (NGC 7023) which shines blue in the center of this image is a reflection nebula, meaning that the bluish light you see in the image is reflected light off of the gas and dust clouds in the nebula. One other notable reflection nebula found in this image is the Ghost Nebula (Sh2-136) which is on the far left center of this image. There's also a ton of dusty nebula around this scene, I'm not sure their exact designations, but they all have unique and interesting shapes.

Also, some very exciting news at Grand Mesa Observatory!! After a pause in operations so that our Director, Terry Hancock could rest and recover from some health issues, we are pleased to announce that we are back to normal operations! Terry feels much better now, and we are all so happy for the support from the many friends of the observatory, thank you! Subscription services will start back up this week December 1st. If you are interested in signing up for data subscriptions check out this link grandmesaobservatory.com/equipment-rentals

Iris Nebula Wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_Nebula

Ghost Nebula Wiki: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Nebula

Captured by Terry Hancock, at Grand Mesa Observatory, Processed by Tom Masterson

Capture dates 9/24, 9/25 2022

Integration

Luminance

47 x 120 second exposures

Red

56 x 120 second exposures

Green

54 x 120 second exposures

Blue

53 x 120 second exposures

Total integration time: 7 hours

Location: GrandMesaObservatory.com Purdy Mesa, Colorado www.grandmesaobservatory.com

Grand Mesa Observatory System 1:

Camera: QHY600 Mono

Filters: Chroma RGB

Optics: Takahashi FSQ130

Image Acquisition software Maxim DL6

Pre-Processed in Pixinsight

Post Processed in Photoshop, Pixinsight, Registar, Starnet, StarXTerminator (for PShotoshop).

In approximately 5,478 years (7500 AD), Alderamin will become Earth's North Star. Alderamin, also known as Alpha Cephei, is the brightest star in the constellation Cepheus. This is a wide field (5 degrees across) photograph I took of Alderamin (centered) with the surrounding nebulosity. Of particular interest is the Flying Bat (Sh2-129) and Squid (OU4) nebulae on the right.

The Iris Nebula is a bright blue reflection nebula located in the fertile star fields of the constellation Cepheus. The nebula is approximately 6 LY across and 1300 LY from Earth.

This image was originally shot in late summer 2022 over 4 separate sessions. I had intended this to be a project that would have been the longest integration time I'd ever shot on a single target. I planned to capture and show the dark nebula in striking detail. So in early August, I started with shooting the initial session over 2 consecutive clear nights. In total, I'd gathered just over 10 hours of data. I followed it up with another 2 nights about a month later adding another 6 hours of data.

But to my shock and horror, when looking to finally work on the project, I was no longer able to find the data from my 2 initial sessions from a month earlier. This was over 10 hours of data acquisition lost. I searched though my photo library, but to no avail. It was nowhere to be found. I still released a decent image of the nebula (in starless form) at the time, but was very disappointed with the data loss.

A few days ago while clearing off an old network attached drive to make room for different data, I found the 2 missing sessions. Turns out I had copied my files to an old drive I was no longer storing astrophotography data on instead of a new network drive I'd since gotten. The data had been sitting there safely for the last 2½ years untouched. Well, until now!

I've gone through all data from all sessions, rejected any frames with clouds or obvious tracking errors, and then ran through the remaining images with analysis tools keeping only the best of my frames with tightest focus. This pared my total time down to 12 hours.

And this is the final result.

-=Tech Data=-

-Equipment-

Imaging Scope: Sky-Watcher Esprit 100

Mount: Celestron CGX

Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI 1600MC-Pro

- Acquisition -

12 hours of 3 minute exposures

- Location -

Dark Sky Viewing Area near Erinsville, Ontario

A trip to one of my a local spots saw 37884 "Cepheus" passing Banklands with the 5V84 11.33 Doncaster Works-Laira empty coaching stock move. The 37 was returning set GW11 for commissioning into revenue earning traffic after refurbishment.

With the lack of trains due to the Coronavirus pandemic, the tractor had a thundering run through the West Country, with the consist running 75 minutes early at this stage and making up more time by the time it reached its destination.

IC 1396 is a large circular region of glowing gas and dust in the constellation of Cepheus and is located about 2400 light-years from Earth.

IC1396A is a portion of this complex known as the Elephant's Trunk. This image is based on 7.3 hours of narrowband data and rendered in the SHO Hubble Palette.

The data was collected over two nights ending on October 22nd. This image was taken on my Astro-Physics 130mm EDT f/8.35 APO telescope platform, which uses a ZWO ASI2600MM-Pro camera, and is supported by an IOptron CEM60 Mount.

My original plan was to collect at least 15 hours of data for the project. That did not happen. This is the usual point where I usually start whining about our weather and how clouds had shut me down.

That's not what happened this time.

This time I was taken down by a nasty virus that gave me the worst cold I have ever had.

We had two wonderfully clear nights that I would have loved to shoot. But by then, I was a drooling puddle of whimpering snot who no longer cared about clear night or astrophotography!

I am now slowly on the mend and feeling just well enough to start processing what data I could acquire whilst still coherent.

The Targets are still there, and hopefully - I will get another chance in November to finish the few that need more data. In the meantime, I will process and publish those sets that received at least a reasonable integration.

The image was processed by using a Synthetic computed Luminance image and extensive use of starless processing workflows.

The full story behind this image, along with a detailed processing walkthrough, can be found at:

cosgrovescosmos.com/projects/ic1396a-10-31-22

I will be adding a video overview of the processing - once my voice returns!

Sh2-132 the Lion nebula - is a weak emission nebula near the constellations of Cepheus and Lacerta. It’s thought to be between 10,000 and 12,000 light years away.

ha 3nm- TAK106 2600MM -20

oiii 3nm - TAK106 2600MM -20

RGB stars - ES80ED 2600MC -20