Start of the new projects, Sh2-216 & LDN 1622Astro Aanarchy

Start of the new projects, Sh2-216 & LDN 1622

This time I'll work with two objects, since LDN 1622 is very low up here, 65 North. I can shoot about two and half hours, before it's too low. My second target for rest of the night is Sharpless 216, an extremely faint planetary nebula. Both projects have been started at 20.02.

LDN 1622, a dark nebula in Orion

Ra 05^h 55^m 11^s Dec +02° 00′ 00"

A gray scale image of H-alpha emission. I'll shoot rest of the emission lines, needed for a color image, later.

LDN 1622, "Boogie Man Nebula", in Orion is a silhouette of dark nebula at lower half of the image. At background, there is part of the "Parnad's Loop", a large cloud of hydrogen surrounding the nebula complex at Belt and Sword of Orion. LDN 1622 is much closer, than a more famous Orion nebulae, about 500 light years.

This target is very difficult to shoot, since it doesn't rise high, up here 65N. Maximum elevation is only about 27 degrees, at the end of the imaging session, the elevation is only 14 degrees above horizon. I actually had to stop imaging for a while, to avoid a chimney at top of the opposite building.

Processing work flow:

Image acquisition, MaxiDL v5.07.

Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack.

Levels, curves and color combine in PS CS3.

Equipments:

Tokina AT-X 300mm f2.8 @ f2.8

Platform and guiding, Meade LX200 GPS 12" @ f5

Camera, QHY9

Guider, Lodestar

Image Scale, 3,79 arc seconds/pixel

Exposures:

Baader H-alpha 7nm 12x1200s, binned 1x1

Sh2-216, A planetary Nebula in Perseus

Ra 04^h 45^m 35^s Dec +46° 48′ 30"