This is the Lion nebula in the constellation Cepheus. An interesting object. The individual mono frames for Ha and OIII look very much like a lion, but putting them together makes the vision a bit harder. I kept the head/mane in a gold color which makes it easier for me to see the lion and its face. Lots going on in this nebula. I imaged this with a TEC140 at 1000mm of focal length and F7 with an AP field flattener on an Astro-Physics 1100GTO mount unguided. The exposures for the nebula are in narrow band taken through 3nm Chroma filters and exposed for 15 and 20 minutes each. The stars were taken through Chroma RGB filters. Total exposure of this object is about 24.5 hours. The most I've done on an object so far. Given the slow focal ratio, I needed it.
SH2-132 lies about 1800 light years away from our solar system and shows as 20x30 arc minutes in size, or about the size of a full moon. I shot this mostly during full moon nights, many of which were hazy with smoke.
best,
Terri
Wow, Terri!
That is amazing! And done, I trust, from your new observatory?
@terri Fantastic image, Terri! Love the colors and the beautiful detail. Great job!
Greg
Wow, Terri!
That is amazing! And done, I trust, from your new observatory?
Peter, thank you for the kind words. It's done from my Patio still. The pier is still 2 weeks away. I'm hoping to install it when we return from Texas.
Terri
@terri Fantastic image, Terri! Love the colors and the beautiful detail. Great job!
Greg
Thankyou Greg. You know I can bring out more stuff in the data, but then it no longer looks like a lion. I'm still playing with it as this was my first go at it. I usually take a quick pass, and then see what i can do.
Terri
@terri I know exactly what you mean, Terri. When I did the Wizard Nebula, I toyed with the idea of doing it in Ha like most images I see since you can really envision the "Wizard" (although I'm not really a Harry Potter fan so I don't know what they're talking about really). I find that the Wizard sort of disappears when a different palette is used and more detail is brought out. Guess you can always do it both ways, right?
Greg
