DESCRIPTION: I tested to capture Squid nebula - very fine blue object in the center - but unfortunately not successful. More data needed, maybe blue light pollution filter destroyed this object, maybe OIII filter is needed. “Artistic” processing via StarXTerminator.

OBJECT: Sh2-129 Flying Bat Nebula and Squid Nebula, Constellation Cepheus, apparent magnitude N/A, apparent dimension 150’.

CALIBRATION: RA 21h 10m, DEC 59°58’, FOV 4,18°x 2,82°, Field radius 2,5°, Pixel scale 3,92 arcsec/px, Orientation: Up is 90,9° E of N, Image size 3840 x 2560 px,

GEAR: Nikon Z7 Kolari Full Spectrum + Nikkor Z 500/5,6, Astronomic UV/IR/L2 Clip in filter, Rollei Astroklar light pollution filter, Dew heater strip, tracking mount iOptron CEM60EC - 3 star alignment, no auto guiding.

ACQUISITION: August 3, 2022, Struz, CZ, Subexposure 180s, f 5,6, ISO 1600, Interval 15 s, RAW-L, Lights 51x, Darks 20x, Bias 20x, Flats 20x, DarkFlats 10x. Total exposure time 153 min. Night, no wind, 18° C, Backyard - Light pollution - Bortle 5.

STACKING AND POST PROCESSING: AstroPixelProcessor (stacking, background neutralisation, light pollution removal, calibrate background and stars colours) , Adobe Photoshop CC 2022 + StarXTerminator.

Object: SH2-129 & Ou4 (The Bat and Squid)

The Bat (SH2-129) is a very dim HII region in the constellation of Cepheus that is about 2300 light years from earth. It contains an OIII region known known as Ou4 or the Giant Squid which is about 50 light years across and is also very dim. The Squid was only recently discovered in 2011 by the French astrophotographer Nicolas Outters. The squid shape is created by the exhaust of a very hot trinary star system. It has been theorized that is it actually a planetary nebula, but that is still under study.

The field also contains two dark nebulas LDN1119 & LDN 1125 in the lower right corner.

- Acquisition Date: 09/20/2023 to 11/12/2023

- Location: Western Massachusetts, USA

- Imaging Camera: QHY600PH-M -10°C - Mode 1(High Gain) Offset:15 Gain:56

- Telescope: Takahashi FSQ106EDXIII @ f/5 (530mm focal length - 106mm aperture)

- Mount: Astro-Physics AP1100 w/GTO4

- Guide scope: Celestron Off Axis Guider

- Guide Camera: ASI174m mini

- Software: Adobe Photoshop CS5, Sequence Generator Pro, PixInsight 1.8 Ripley, Aries Astro Pixel Processor

Filters:

- Chroma Ha 3nm 50mm

- Chroma OIII 3nm 50mm

Exposure Times:

- Hydrogen Alpha (Ha): 29 x 10min. (290min) bin 1x1

- Oxygen III (OIII):64 x 10min. (640min) bin 1x1

Total Exposure:930min. (15.5hrs)

Sky Quality:

-Magnitude: 19.71

-Bortle Class 5

-1.41 mcd/m^2 Brightness

-1234.6 ucd/m^2 Artificial Brightness

This is a long running project of mine: to slowly gather enough photons to image this wickedly faint blue nebula, known as the giant squid nebula. It's shape and emissions are consistent with it being a planetary nebula (the remains of a dying sun-like star). It sits in front of the majestic Bat Nebula (red) which is an emission region. It's not known exactly how close these two nebula might actually be to one another, but they make for a dramatic sight together!

Image details:

Shot with:

Tele Vue NP 101 @ f/4.3

QSI 6120 Camera

3nm Astrodon HA and OIII filters

Guide camera - QHY 5IIL-M

Sky-Watcher AZEQ-5 Mount

Sequence capture controlled with Sequence Generator Pro

Location:

Central District, Seattle, WA

53x5min HA

142x5min OIII

=16-1/4 hours total integration time over 5 nights

Processed with Pixinsight

Otherwise known as OU4 and Sh2-129 in the constellation Cepheus lying at a distance of approximately 2300 light years. Both emission Nebulae, the Flying Bat mainly composed mainly of Hydrogen emission and the Squid’s emission composed of double ionized oxygen. An extremely faint object The Squid Nebula was discovered in 2011 by French Astro-imager Nicolas Outters

Captured recently in Narrowband (H-Alpha and OIII) 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 Bi Color version (HOO) the H-Alpha is mapped to the red channel and OIII is mapped to the green and blue channel. The raw data was preprocessed using Pixinsight, the stars were then removed using a tool in Photoshop called "StarXTerminator and the stars were later replaced with the more naturally colored stars from the RGB data.

Taken bin 2x2 over 17 nights between September and October 2021 for a total acquisition time of 51 hours.

View in High Resolution

Astrobin: www.astrobin.com/g8zawj/

Technical Details

Captured and processed by: Terry Hancock

Location: GrandMesaObservatory.com Purdy Mesa, Colorado

HA 1330 min, 266 x 300 sec

OIII 1430 min, 286 x 300 sec

LUM 88 min, 44 x 120 sec

RED 86 min, 43 x 120 sec

GREEN 78 min, 39 x 120 sec

BLUE 58 min, 29 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 in Pixinsight Post Processed in Photoshop CC

Equipment:

Epsilon 130ED dual rig

QHY268m + CFW3M

Touptek IMX571 + ZWO EFW

Astronomik MaxFR

Skywatcher EQ8

September 2022

Processing: PixInsight/affinity photo

63x90s red

62x90s green

64x90s blue

537x180s Ha

382x180s OIII

171x180 SII

total 59,2 hours

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.

Discovered in 2011 by French astrophotographer Nicolas Outters, the Squid Nebula (Ou4) is distinguished by its elegant bipolar shape and the vivid blue glow of doubly ionized oxygen (Oiii). It is nestled entirely within the reddish hydrogen-rich emission nebula Sh2-129, also known as the Flying Bat Nebula.

Recent research indicates that Ou4 lies roughly 2,300 light-years from Earth and resides within Sh2-129. This makes Ou4 a dramatic outflow, originating from HR 8119, a triple system of hot, massive stars at the nebula’s core. With an enormous physical size of nearly 50 light-years, the Squid Nebula stands as one of the largest and most intriguing emission structures in the night sky.

Capturing the Squid Nebula is a real challenge and requires very long integration times over several nights... The perfect challenge to test my new deep space imaging rig.

Equipment:

Telescope: Sharpstar SQA106

Mount: Sky-Watcher Wave 150i

Camera: ZWO ASI 1600MM Pro

Filter: Baader RGB, 3nm Ha & 4.5nm Oiii with a ZWO EFW

Focuser: ZWO EAF

Autoguider: ZWO ASI 385MC with Artesky UltraGuide 32mm

Rig control: ZWO Astrophotography ASIAir Plus

EXIF

130x 30s with RGB

50x 300s Ha

150x 300s Oiii

Total exposure time: 20h

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

Wide field centered on IC 1396

Credit: Giuseppe Donatiello and Giovanni Vincenzo Donatiello

Wide field centered on IC 1396 in Cepheus.

August 8, 2026.

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 (f/4) + Canon EOS 4000D (1200s - 3200 ISO)

On 22nd of April 2020 I was able to try out the Canon EOS 600D full spectrum with my Samyang 135mm f/2.0. It was a great night with very dark sky (SQM-L 21,63 mag/arcsec²) here in the Spreewald region of southern Brandenburg (Germany). This is IC 1396 with the Elefant's Trunk Nebula with Sharpless 129 and Barnard 169-71 in the constellation Cepheus.

[Canon EOS 600Dfs, Samyang 135 mm f/2, f/2.8, ISO-1600, 70x90s, APP+PS]

This milkyway region is located northern part of the constellation Cygnus and shows numerous nebulas in the constellation Cepheus as well as the mighty dark cloud Le Gentil 3.

September 17th 2020 - Canon EOS 1000Da, Canon EF f1.8 STM, F/4, ISO-1600, 20x6 Min. on Skywatcher Staradventurer, APP + Adobe Photoshop CC 2020

——— STRUMENTAZIONE ———

Telescopio: Skywatcher 200/800 Wide Photo

Camera: Zwo Asi 294 mm pro

Montatura: Skywatcher AZ-EQ6

Autoguida: 60mm UltraGuide Artesky con zwo asi 224mc

Correttore di coma: aplanatico Skywatcher f4

Focheggiatore motorizzato Zwo Eaf

Ruota portafiltri Zwo Efw

Filtri: Antlia pro Ha O3 rgb

Software d'acquisizione Sgpro

————— FOTO ————

temp 0 con dark, flat e darkflat

HA 74 x 300s

O3 136 x 300s

rgb 10 x 300s

————— ELABORAZIONE ———

Pixinsight

Photoshop

This wide-field image frames the prominent emission nebula IC 1396, at left, and the faint arcs of Sharpless 2-129 at right, in southern Cepheus. IC 1396 contains the dark Elephant Trunk Nebula at about the 3 o’clock position in the nebula. At the top edge of the nebula is the orange giant star Mu Cephei, aka Herschel’s Garnet Star. The dark nebula at top left is Barnard 169-70-71. The dark nebulas at the bottom of IC 1396 are B160, B162 and the snake-like B365. A small blue reflection nebula below and left of the Sharpless complex is VandenBurgh 140.

This is a blend of filtered and unfiltered shots, all with the William Optics RedCat 51mm astrographic refractor at its native f/5 and with the Canon EOS Ra: 6 x 8-minutes at ISO 1600 without the filter and 4 x 12-minutes at ISO 5000 with the Optolong L-Enhance filter, which reduces light by about 2 to 3 f-stops but really makes the H-alpha nebulas stand out. All stacked, aligned and blended in Photoshop. LENR employed on all frames on this warm summer night to ensure the most accurate dark frame subtraction of thermal noise but at the cost of doubling the capture time.

Target: SH2-129 OU4 Flying Bat and Squid Nebulae

The Flying Bat and the Squid Nebula are challenging targets to capture. Despite being over 6 times the size of the full moon the light given off by ionized hydrogen (Red) and the ionized oxygen Blue/Green it is extremely faint. I imaged over 3 nights in order to collect the equivalent of an 19.5 hour image. Due to being in the suburbs of Houston, it took a lot of effort in processing to pull the squid out of the light polluted background. One year I'll image this again from darker skies to pull more detail from the squid.

Gear:

Mount: ZWO AM5

Main Cam: ZWO ASI294MC Pro @ gain 121 and 8F

Guide Cam: ZWO ASI120MM Mini with ZWO 30mm f/4 scope

Telescope: Askar 103APO w/ 0.6x reducer/flattener - 420mm f/4

Filter: Antlia ALP-T Dual Narrowband 5nm Ha and Oiii

Acquisition:

Light frames: 234 300 second subs for 19hr 30min integration

Sessions: 06, 07, and 08-Aug-2024

Moon: <4 days old

Location: Houston suburb home ~ Bortle 8

Located in the constellation of Cephus, a bright red hydrogen alpha gas forms the shape of a flying bat and lying within, is the very faint blue Giant Squid shaped nebula. Located 2,300 light-years from Earth, the Flying Bat spans 8 full moons.

This project spanned 13 nights imaging from December 4 2021 until January 12 2022. The total imaging time of 28 hours was barely enough to pick out the very faint details of the Giant Squid and will be an on-going project to develop more details in the image. I will revisit this challenging target next year adding sulphur II and RGB to give it more natural detail in the stars and nebula.

Technical details:

Location:

Gérgal, Almeria, Spain. Bortle class 4.5

Filters used:

Oiii 218 x 300s = 18 Hours

Ha 129 x 300s = 10.75 Hours

Equipment:

Telescope: William Optics GT81 with x0.8 Field Flattener @ 385mm

Image Camera: ZWO ASI 2600 MM Pro -5 C

Pegasus Astro Falcon rotator

Pegasus Astro Focus Cube

ZWO 7 Position filter wheel

ZWO Filters 7nm Oii and Ha

Guide scope: William Optics 50mm Uniguide 200mm f/4

Guide camera: ZWO ASI 192 MM Mini

Software:

N.I.N.A, PHD2, Sharpcap Pro, PixInsight and Lightroom Classic.

This image was created by using my existing "zoomed-in" data of IC 1396 (top left) and SH2-129 (bottom right). I recently spent several nights at a Bortle-1 location, I shot a wide-field data set framing both these famous and beautiful nebulea of Cepheus together. I then combined them using the program Registar.

"Zoomed in" data shot using a ASI2600mm Pro, Esprit 100ED refractor, and EQ6r-Pro mount.

"Zoomed out" data shot with my Nikon D750a (Ha mod by LifePixel), Rokinon 135mm lens, and ZWO AM5 mount.

Data processed with Pixinsight, Registar, and Photoshop.

Two nebulae are captured in this image. The Flying Bat Nebula (Sh2-129) appears reddish-orange and was captured using Ha and Sii narrowband filters. The Squid Nebula (Ou4) is the blue object and was captured using an Oiii narrowband filter. The two nebulae are found in the constellation Cepheus and are estimated to be 2,300 light-years away. Ou4 was discovered in 2011 and is formed by the outflow of gas and dust (stellar wind) from a triple system of hot, massive stars seen near the center of the nebula. The Squid Nebula is estimated to be nearly 50 light-years across.

Capture Details -

Bortle Class 5 backyard, SF Bay Area (East Bay)

Capture: Ha, Oiii, Sii 14x360sec per filter

Telescope: WO RedCat 71

Camera: ZWO ASI2600MM-Pro

Filters: Astronomik Ha, Oiii and Sii

Guide Camera: ZWO ASI174MM mini

Mount: iOptron GEM45

Calibrated with Darks, Flats and Dark Flats

ZWO ASIAIR Plus Control and Capture

Processed with Pleiades PixInsight and Photoshop CC

A 6-panel mosaic of the Elephant's trunk, Flying Bat and Giant Squid Nebula. It’s a mosaic picture out of 6 panels as RGBHOO..

Captured in May / June 2023. Processed 11.11.2023. Captured with the qhy268c gain 56 a 94EDPH APO, tracked with a cem26.. Stackend in Astro pixel processor, PP in Pixinsight and Photoshop.

29 Octubre, 15,19, 29 Noviembre, 21 Diciembre del 2015

Lens: Samyang 135mm

Camera: AtikOne 6

2 pane mosaic, 15h total integration, HaO3LRGB

SQM: 20,90

Imaging telescopes or lenses: Skywatcher Esprit 80 ED Triplet Super Apo

Imaging cameras: ZWO ASI 183 MM PRO

Mounts: SkyWatcher NEQ6 Pro Goto

Guiding telescopes or lenses: Skywatcher Esprit 80 ED Triplet Super Apo

Guiding cameras: Astrolumina Alccd5L-IIc

Focal reducers: Skywatcher Field flattener for Esprit 80mm

Software: DeepSky Stacker Deep Sky Stacker 3.3.4 · PhotoShop CS5 · PHD2 Guiding · FitsWork 4 · CCDCiel

Filters: Baader Planetarium O3 1.25" 8.5nm · Baader R 1.25'' CCD Filter · Baader B 1.25'' CCD Filter · Baader G 1.25'' CCD Filter · Baader Ha 1.25" 7nm

Accessory: TSOptics TS Off Axis Guider - 9mm

Dates:May 17, 2020 , May 18, 2020 , May 21, 2020 , May 25, 2020

Frames:

Baader B 1.25'' CCD Filter: 14x300" (1h 10') (gain: 53.00) -20C bin 1x1

Baader G 1.25'' CCD Filter: 14x300" (1h 10') (gain: 53.00) -20C bin 1x1

Baader Ha 1.25" 7nm: 21x600" (3h 30') (gain: 200.00) -20C bin 1x1

Baader Planetarium O3 1.25" 8.5nm: 48x600" (8h) (gain: 200.00) -20C bin 1x1

Baader R 1.25'' CCD Filter: 14x300" (1h 10') (gain: 53.00) -20C bin 1x1

Integration: 15h

Darks: 37

Flats: 25

Flat darks: 100

The red (Ha Signal) is sh2-129, the flying bat nebula. The blue squid nebula (OIII signal) in this image (OU4) was discovered by the French Amateur Astrophotographer Nicolas Outters in 2011. It is very faint. I used a tone mapping process originally described by J-P Metsavainio to bring it out.

This image is a composite of four emission nebulae, clouds of star-forming gas and dust that are illuminated by the newborn stars they host. Each of them are included in the Sharpless Catalog of emission nebulae compiled by Stewart Sharpless in the 1950's. The individual images were captured over a period of four clear nights in Seattle, Washington, using an Ha narrowband filter to suppress light pollution by only admitting light at wavelengths emitted by the nebulae.

From top-left to bottom-right, the nebulae and integration times are as follows:

SH2-86 in Vulpecula (200 mins)

SH2-129 in Cepheus (235 mins)

SH2-126 in Lacerta (250 mins)

SH2-155 in Cepheus (195 mins)

Telescope: Tele Vue 76mm

Camera: QSI 683wsg

Filter: Astrodon Ha 5nm

Mount: iOptron iEQ45 Pro

Processing Software: PixInsight 1.8. Composited using Adobe Photoshop.

Sh2-129/Ou4 (Ha-OIII)

Credit: Giuseppe Donatiello

Discovered by French astro-imager Nicolas Outters, the bipolar shape and emission are consistent with it being a planetary nebula, but its actual distance and origin are unknown.

Recent investigation suggests Ou4 really lies within the emission region SH2-129 some 2,300 light-years away. Consistent with that scenario, the cosmic squid would represent a spectacular outflow of material driven by a triple system of hot, massive stars, cataloged as HR8119, seen near the center of the nebula. If so, this nebula would physically be nearly 50 light-years across.

L-RGB-Halpha-OIII composition

Frames taken with Tair-3S in 2019 and 2020 + 110/250 f/2.2 in 2025. Total exposure 13h. New edit.

Sharpless 129 sometimes called The Flying Bat

There are many nebulae in the Cepheus constellation, and it's turn of these 2 to be presented.

The blue nebula, or the Squid, is a very very faint one, so faint that it only was discovered 10 years ago, in 2011, by Nicolas Outters (Ou4). It is a bipolar planetary nebula emitting light in the Oxygen [III] lines.

It looks big on our sky though, it covers almost 3 full Moons. Its true source isn't yet identified, but it's believed to be due to star HR8119. That would put it inside the wider nebula apparently in the background.

The nebula behind the Squid is Sharpless object 129 (Sh2-129) and it resembles a bat flapping its wings. Its red nature is determined by the large amount of ionized hydrogen emitting light.

This Squid the faintest object that I imaged, I could barely see a hint of the center of the nebula in 10 minutes exposure.

But after shooting almost 23 hours through the O[III] filter with a wide dual setup, I decided to switch to a 150mm newtonian reflector with a higher resolution which allowed me to separate better the nebula from the stars.

So I added 6 more hours of O[III] with this scope then I moved to capturing the hydrogen.

As I wanted to emphasize the harder to capture Squid nebula, I only shot 8h of hydrogen which I didn't stretch too much.

For this image I traveled and spent away from the city 4 nights during July and August and shot one night from home, mostly for framing.

Salut à tous,

Voici encore une nébuleuse en émission: SH2-129 (Nébuleuse de la chauve souris en vol).

Visible dans la constellation de Céphée et située à environ 1300 années lumière, elle à pour particularité de montrer à travers elle un autre objet surprenant !

En effet en son centre nous pouvons apercevoir OU4, une zone d'oxygène ionisé (OIII) rappelant la forme d'un calamar.

C'est un objet découvert récemment (2011) par un passionné d'imagerie (Nicolas Outters), je vous conseille fortement de lire le récit de sa découverte: outters.fr/.../uploads/2015/12/decouverte-OU4.pdf

Ou de regarder son interview par la team Astrofleet : www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jWmIDii07Q

C'est passionnant !

Niveau prise de vue, on manque cruellement ici de temps de pose total et unitaire. Cette cible reste un challenge à la prise de vue comme au traitement !

Information prise de vue :

Lieu / date : Tinlot (Belgique) - 08/08/2022

Constellation : Céphée

Acquisition : 04h20 (65 x 240 sec) + DOF

Monture : Skywatcher EQ6R pro

Tube optique : Celestron RASA 8

Caméra : ZWO Asi2600MC

Filtre : IDAS NBZ

Accessoires : ZWO EAF - ZWO ASIAIR PRO

Traitement : Siril - Pixinsight - Lightroom

Haute définition et astrométrie : www.astrobin.com/v89avc/

Bon ciel !

71x300s, gain 150, -10C, H-alpha

(Traitement HOO)

Camera Asi 071MC filtre dual-band

Camera Asi 183MM (Bin2) filtre OIII 3nm

Apo RedCat 51 f4.9

Guidage chercheur SW et Asi 174

Monture EM-200 Temma-2Z

48x600 sec (HOO)

60x600 sec (OIII)

9h expo

51 DOF

Echelle de Bortle: 6-7

——— STRUMENTAZIONE ———

Obiettivo: Samyang 135mm f2

Camera: Zwo Asi 294 mc color pro

Montatura: Skywatcher AZ-EQ5

Autoguida: Zwo mini guide con zwo asi 224mc

Filtro: Optolong L-ultimate

Software d'acquisizione Sgpro

————— FOTO ————

temp 0 con dark, flat e darkflat

300s x 315scatti

—— ELABORAZIONE ——

Pixinsight

Photoshop

IC 1396 + Sh2-129/Ou4

Credit: Giuseppe Donatiello

This image is a composition obtained by combining various sessions with 200 and 135mm telephoto lenses, between 2019 and 2023, from Piano Visitone, Pollino National Park, at 1400 m.

Sh2-129/Ou4 (above left)

Discovered by French astro-imager Nicolas Outters, the bipolar shape and emission are consistent with it being a planetary nebula, but its actual distance and origin are unknown.

Recent investigation suggests Ou4 really lies within the emission region SH2-129 some 2,300 light-years away. Consistent with that scenario, the cosmic squid would represent a spectacular outflow of material driven by a triple system of hot, massive stars, cataloged as HR8119, seen near the center of the nebula. If so, this nebula would physically be nearly 50 light-years across.

IC 1396 (below right) is a large ionized gas region located in the constellation Cepheus at about 2,400 light years. The nebula mixes glowing cosmic gas and dark dust cloud, and there is a scattering of hot stars, quite widely separated from each other, inside the nebula.

The brightest star (38,000 times brighter than the Sun) in the image is mu Cephei. It's a red supergiant star with a diameter larger than the orbit of Saturn, some 2,800 times the diameter of the Sun. It is one of the largest stars we know of. Also called Herschel’s Garnet Star, mu Cephei is a variable star that varies in magnitude from 3.4 to 5.1 over a period of approximately 730 days.

Last update: January 24, 2025

SH2-129

Nébuleuse de la chauve souris en vol

Avant que mon fils ne récupère son filtre (IDAS-NB1) et avant de savoir dans quoi il faudra que j'investisse un jour (nouveau filtre ou changement de philosophe pour passer au N&B avec des filtres spécifiques), mon objectif est toujours l'OIII et l'Ha

Direction la nébuleuse de la chauve souris en vol (région Ha) et la nébuleuse du calamar (région OIII) bin, le filtre NB1 est redoutable pour les zone Ha par contre toujours pas de céphalopode à l'horizon, vraiment très compliqué l'OIII, conclusion faudra un jour passer au N&B

matériel

lunette FSQ-106ED avec réducteur focale x0.73

caméra ZWO1600MC-C avec filtre IDAS-NB1

6 poses de 900s

The "Squid" sometimes also called, the "Bat" was only discovered in 2011. There is a region of oxygen that is faint called, "OU4" that jets out on both ends. Enhanced using the STC DUO filter for narrowband Ha-OIII.

Skywatcher 10" f/4

90x300 STC DUO Filter (Ha-OIII) Integration 7.5 hours

QHY 268C Color Camera

A two frame mosaic, from IC 1396 to the Sh2-129

Large images and technical details in my blog:

www.astroanarchy.blogspot.com/2012/02/panorama-mosaic-fro...

Integrated flux nebulae are visible in the field, and Sivan 2 shows vast red ring and green haze in the south part of the constellation Cassiopeia.

Here is a frame of integrated nebulae around Messier 31 with Apo-Elmarit-R 180mmF2.8.

www.flickr.com/photos/hiroc/6754827529/

Here is a frame of Sivan 2 with FSQ-106ED and reducer QE 0.73x at f/3.6

www.flickr.com/photos/hiroc/6224453705/

C/2014 E2 Jacques was drifting near the right upper corner.

equipment: Sigma 35mmF1.4 DG HSM "Art" and Canon EOS 5Dmk2-sp2, modified by Seo-san on Takahashi EM-200 Temma 2 Jr, autoguided with Takahashi FSQ-106ED, hiro-design off-axis guider, SX Lodestar, and PHD Guiding

exposure: 6 times x 30 minutes, 4 x 15 min, 3 x 4 min, and 3 x 1 minute at ISO 1,600 and f/4.0

The first exposure started at 10:05:48 August 29, 2014UTC.

site: 11,000 feet above sea level near Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii

This is work in progress, but I’m super eager to share where I’m at with this.

I started the idea of this back in May of 2020. I wanted to test and push the limits on sub length on my EQ6R unguided after just getting it and coming from the Star Adventurer.

I wanted to also test manually doing a mosaic (as at this time I was still using APT, so no mosaic planner) and I got an image that was okay, although dealing with the rotation of an EQ mount is tricky without a mosaic planner. Something I learnt pretty quick was that I was going to need a LOT of exposure time to get anything useable..

I wanted to go with 600s subs just to play it a bit safe, but I was already at ISO 3200 with F2.8 glass and it was still underexposed with no sign of the flying bat in sight. Stock DSLRs are really a challenge doing narrowband even on bright targets, let alone the flying bat which is generally mono cooled astro cam territory.

So, I increased to 900s..15 minutes. Unguided.

But my stars were completely pin point to my absolute amazement. This must have been down to the short focal length, undersampling and Ha letting less starlight through to trail.

With this new found excitement, I powered through for nights on end capturing as much data as I could until I simply couldn’t face it anymore. I ended up getting 29.5 hours of data.

So, now I should mention that because I was manually doing the mosaic, it made framing pretty tricky. I ended up with a 3 panel mosaic, but I wanted it to be a 2 panel split horizontally. However, in practise, the end shape was more of a square with sticky out arms due to rotation over the nights and with no working plate solving, I had to manually line everything up each night.

I originally stacked and processed using Deep Sky Stacker and manually pieces it together in Photoshop. However, it wasn’t until months later (March 2021) where I got to real grips with Astro Pixel Processor. This allowed me to take advantage of the powerful mosaic integration and fantastic tools it provides, including the Ha debayering option which delivers a cleaner result.

So, here is the end image.

- Stock Canon 6D

- Unguided 900s subs

- 29.5 hours of integration.

Equipment used:

- EQ6R Pro

- Canon 6D

- Canon 70-200 2.8 IS II

- APT

- Pegasus Pocket Powerbox

- APP

- Photoshop

- Astronomik Ha 12nm Clip

Cepheus Flare Complex is clouds in the left upper quarter of the frame between Cepheus and Polaris near the left upper corner.

We can see green trace of drifting comet C/2014 E2 Jacques near the left edge. Here is an image of the comet taken just after this.

www.flickr.com/photos/hiroc/15178257005/

equipment: Sigma 35mmF1.4 DG HSM "Art" and Canon EOS 5Dmk2-sp2, modified by Seo-san on Takahashi EM-200 Temma 2 Jr, autoguided with Takahashi FSQ-106ED, hiro-design off-axis guider, SX Lodestar, and PHD Guiding

exposure: 6 times x 30 minutes, 5 x 15 min, 4 x 4 min, and 6 x 1 minute at ISO 1,600 and f/4.0

site: 11,000 feet above sea level near Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii

This bat is huge! Fills the FOV of my FSQ and STL. Although they call it the "flying bat", I see it more as an oyster shell, complete with pearl in the middle.

Attempted it last week on two dark, moonless nights from a rural area. As they say, there's no substitute for truly dark skies!

Details:

LHaRGB = 110:60:30:30:40 minutes

Telescope = Takahashi FSQ-85EDX

Camera = STL-11000M

Mount = EQ6 Pro

Software = capture, stacking and alignment in MaximDL; mosaicking, levels and cropping in Photoshop

Location = Captured from eastern Ontario, mag 6 moonless skies, on July 25-27 2011.

This is a portrait of most of the northern constellation of Cepheus the King, shot and processed to emphasize the rich collection of bright and dark nebulas within its borders. North is up in this framing. The lower portion of the image contains the Milky Way and is rich in bright stars, emission nebulas, but also dark dust lanes that stand out easily.

The brightest nebula at bottom is IC 1396, sometimes called the Elephant's Trunk Nebula, though that name applies only to a dark nebula within its boundaries. On the northern edge of IC 1396 is the orange star Mu Cephei, aka the Garnet Star for its red appearance in the eyepiece. The dark nebula to the left of IC 1396 is Barnard 169-70-71.

The arc of dimmer pink nebulosity to the right of IC 1396 is Sharpless 2-129, which has lately come to be known as the Flying Bat Nebula. Meanwhile, the small patch of nebulosity to the left of IC 1396 is Sharpless 2-132, the Lion Nebula. A smaller nebula above and to the left of the Lion at the left edge is NGC 7380/Sharpless 2-142, the Wizard Nebula, very small on this scale. Higher up at the left edge below centre is Sharpless 2-155, the Cave Nebula. Lots of fainter wisps of pink emission nebulosity permeate the constellation

At top, well above the Milky Way, the field is yellowed by dust clouds, punctuated by bright blue reflection nebulas. At upper right, looking starlike, is NGC 7023, the Iris Nebula above a small lane of dust. At upper centre is the dusty yellow region containing the Dark Shark (aka LDN 1235) and the Wolf's Cave Nebulas (aka B175), and the blue reflection nebulas van den Bergh 150 and 152, respectively. But they are very small on this scale.

The field of view isn't quite tall enough to take in the top, or northernmost star in Cepheus, Errai or Gamma Cephei.

This is a stack of 40 x 2-minute exposures with the rare Samyang RF85mm f/1.4 lens stopped down to f/2.8, on the Canon EOS Ra camera at ISO 800. The lens was equipped with a 77mm Nisi Clear Night broadband light pollution reduction filter which helps improve contrast and reduce sky gradients. The camera was on the Star Adventurer 2i tracker for tracked but unguided exposures over 90 minutes. Taken from home on a very clear night November 18, 2023.

All frames stacked, registered and processed in Photoshop, with luminosity masks and filters applied to bring out the fainter nebulosity such as the dark clouds and faint wisps of red emission nebulosity.

Cepheus Flare Complex is the brownish cloud in the upper half of the frame. There looks to be a vast dark arch near the upper edge. Round-shaped distribution of red, Hydrogen-alpha clouds in the lower half is called as Cepheus Bubble or Cepheus OB2 Shell.

equipment: Zeiss Aposonnar 135mmF2 and Canon EOS 5Dmk2-sp2, modified by Seo-san on Takahashi EM-200 Temma 2 Jr, autoguided with Takahashi FSQ-106ED, hiro-design off-axis guider, SX Lodestar Autoguider, and PHD Guiding

exposure: 9 times x 20 minutes, 5 x 15 min, 2 x 4 min, and 5 x 1 minute at ISO 1,600 and f/3.2

site: 11,000 feet above sea level near Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii

Target:The Flying Bat Nebula, SH2-129, Ha emission, Cepheus, 2300 light years away.

Location:11-8-21, St Helens UK Bortle 7. No Moon.

Acquisition:93x 120s CLS-CCD, Iso 800, T 26c, 25x each dark, flat, dark flat calibration frames. Total integration 3.1 hours.

Equipment:Altair 60EDF, 1x Flat 60, Skytech CLS-CCD, Canon 1200D (astro modified), Skywatcher AZ-GTi, Sirui AM-284-EU.

Guiding:Altair MG32mini with GPCAMAR0130M.

Software:Astroberry, Ekos, PHD2 on RPi4.

Processing:Affinity Photo, Siril, Starnet++.

Joyeux Noël à tous ,

J'ai enfin pris le temps d'assembler ma mosaique de la zone de la chauve souris en vol (Flying Bat Nébula).

Nous pouvons y voir :

SH2-129 (Chauve souris)

Outters 4 (Le calamar)

Barnard 150 (L'Hippocampe)

Cette image représente 07h56 de capture à F2 décomposée comme ceci :

65 x 240 secondes pour la zone de SH2-129 avec un filtre HA/OIII (Idas Nbz)

72 x 180 secondes pour la zone de Barnard 150 sans filtre

Lieu / date : Tinlot (Belgique) - 03/08/2022 + 08/08/2022

Constellation : Céphée

Monture : Skywatcher EQ6R pro

Tube optique : Celestron RASA 8

Caméra : ZWO Asi2600MC

Filtre : Idas NBZ + Sans

Accessoires : ZWO EAF - ZWO ASIAIR PRO

Traitement : Siril - Pixinsight - Lightroom

Astrométrie et haute définition : www.astrobin.com/0ezr7z/

Bon ciel et joyeuses fêtes à tous

Integrated flux nebulae are visible in the field, and Sivan 2 shows vast red ring and green haze in the south part of the constellation Cassiopeia.

Here is a frame of integrated nebulae around Messier 31 with Apo-Elmarit-R 180mmF2.8.

www.flickr.com/photos/hiroc/6754827529/

Here is a frame of Sivan 2 with FSQ-106ED and reducer QE 0.73x at f/3.6

www.flickr.com/photos/hiroc/6224453705/

C/2014 E2 Jacques was drifting near the right upper corner.

equipment: Sigma 35mmF1.4 DG HSM "Art" and Canon EOS 5Dmk2-sp2, modified by Seo-san on Takahashi EM-200 Temma 2 Jr, autoguided with Takahashi FSQ-106ED, hiro-design off-axis guider, SX Lodestar, and PHD Guiding

exposure: 6 times x 30 minutes, 4 x 15 min, 3 x 4 min, and 3 x 1 minute at ISO 1,600 and f/4.0

The first exposure started at 10:05:48 August 29, 2014UTC.

site: 11,000 feet above sea level near Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii

More info and a large image in my blog: www.astroanarchy.blogspot.fi/2014/01/a-zoom-in-series-of-...

Now and then I have published some zoom in series of various objects imaged by me.

The purpose is to show the apparent scale in the sky. Beside that, this series shows nicely the fractal nature of our universe. Series are possible to make, since I have shot many objects with various focal lengths.

Like this one is shot with 200mm, 300mm and ~2000mm focal lengths

SH2-129, Flying Bat Nebula, is a 10th moaginitue bright nebula in the constellation of Cepheus. It is approximately 9,000 light years from us. Inside the Flying Bat Nebula we find OU4, or Squid Nebula, mainly OIII signal.

This image has been the source of a lot of complexity. I use a William Optics FLT91 with 0.8x reducer.

The colour camera, ASI2600MC Pro and using the Optlong L'Ultimate and IDAS NBX filters over 7 hours integration time, mainly captured the hydrogen content of the Flying Bat Nebula, but showed very faint blue colours of the Squid Nebula.

Using Pixinsight and Affinity Photo 2, I split the RGB channels and recombined them giving the G+B channels more weight in order to increase the blue/green OIII signal. This led to some colour imbalance, but a greater visibility of the Squid.

More acquisition details: astrob.in/15792n/C/

More info in my blog: www.astroanarchy.blogspot.fi/2014/02/all-my-images-from-s...

This is a small collection of my images, shot at Spring 2014. There are not many images and new ones aren't coming anytime soon, since my main telescope system has toasted beyond any repair. I'm having a hard time trying to figure out, how to restore my observatory to an imaging condition with a very limited assets.

I managed to get some really rare images though. I think, that both supernova remnant images, Sharpless 221 and G65.3+5.7 SNR, are the first three band color images, showing the whole remnant, in the world! If someone is able to find other images, I'm very interested to hear about it. Both SNR images are kind of long projects. Exposure time for the G65.3+5.7 SNR 38 hours and for the Sharpless 221 was 33 hours, with the planetary nebula Sharpless 216, 58 hours. (Image at the bottom of the poster.)

Main work for the season was the large, ten panels mosaic of the constellation Cepheus. Every pane is shot three times to have a narrow band color composition. Total exposure time was 92 hours, it includes shots from six different years.

All images from the Spring season -14 are shot with the Canon EF200mm f1.8 camera lens (full open), QHY9 a cooled astronomical camera and the Baader narrowband filters, H-a, S-II and O-III.

More info in my blog: www.astroanarchy.blogspot.fi/2014/08/ic-1896-reprocessed....

The astronomical darkness hasn't arrived yet, up here 65N, and I don't have any equipments to continue my imaging work. Due to that, I have done some reprocessing of older material of mine. An other reason is to keep up my processing skills.

equipment: Zeiss Aposonnar 135mmF2 and Canon EOS 5Dmk2-sp2, modified by Seo-san on Takahashi EM-200 Temma 2 Jr, autoguided with Takahashi FSQ-106ED, hiro-design off-axis guider, SX Lodestar Autoguider, and PHD Guiding

exposure: 9 times x 20 minutes, 5 x 15 min, 2 x 4 min, and 5 x 1 minute at ISO 1,600 and f/3.2

site: 11,000 feet above sea level near Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii

Located in the constellation of Cepheus, this nebula is huge. Some estimations put it's width at 9 full moons. It's approximately 1,300 lights years from Earth. To the top right of Sh2-129 there's the reflection nebula of vdB 140.

Details

M: HEQ5

T: Takahashi FSQ85 0.73x

C: Atik 460EX mono with 3nm Astrodon Ha filter

This is a combination of 6 panes.

Total integration:

81x1800s