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Astrophotography by Bob Franke

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IC 405 The Flaming Star Nebula

 

Click the image for a larger view.
 

Instrument

Takahashi FSQ-106ED @ f/5.0 (530 mm F.L.) Captured at 2.1 arcsec/pixel.  Shown at 4.2 and 9.38 arcsec/pixel.

Mount

Losmandy G11 with Gemini L4 v1.0

Camera

SBIG STF-8300M Self Guiding Package w/ mono ST-i, using an AstroDon Ha and Baader LRGB filters.

Acquisition Data

11/10/2013 to 1/29/2014 Chino Valley, AZ... with CCDAutoPilot5 & CCDSoft.

Exposure

 Lum 345 min. (23 x 15 min. bin 1x1)
 Ha 360 min. (24 x 15 min. bin 1x1)

Red

210 min. (14 x 15 min. bin 1x1)

Green

210 min. (14 x 15 min. bin 1x1)

Blue

240 min. (16 x 15 min. bin 1x1)

Click here for the narrow band color mapped image.

Click here for an Ha filtered b/w image.

Software & Processing Notes

  • CCDSoft, CCDStack, Photoshop CS6, PixInsight and Noel Carboni's actions.

  • No SDSS stars were available for color balancing, so a standard image-train calibration was used, as determined by eXcalibrator v4.30, and then adjusted for altitude extinction.

  • CCDStacK to calibrate the sub exposures.

  • PixInsight for registration and stacking the sub exposures, RGB creation, gradient removal, the initial non-linear stretching and star dimming with MorphologicalTransformation

  • PhotoShop for the LRGB combine, adding Ha data to the red channel & final touch-up.

  • Noiseware 5, a PhotoShop plug-in.

Comment

The nebula is shown with North to the top.

 

IC 405 (also known as the Flaming Star Nebula, SH 2-229, or Caldwell 31) is an emission/reflection nebula in the constellation Auriga, about 1,500 light-years from Earth. The rippling dust and gas lanes surround the star AE Aurigae and give the impression that the star is aflame... hence the nebula's popular name.

The star, AE Aurigae, creates the red glow by energizing the nebula's hydrogen. The blush areas are created by dust that scatters and reflects the stars blue light.