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Astrophotography by Bob Franke

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IC 443 & Sh2-249

 

Click the image for a half size 7.0 arcsec/pixel display (1800 x 1200)

Close up of vdB75 and IC 444... at 2.3 arcsec/pixel 

Instrument

Takahashi FSQ-106ED @ f/5.0 (530 mm F.L.)  Captured at 3.5 arcsec/pixel.  Shown resampled to 16.8 arcsec/pixel.

Mount

Paramount ME

Camera

SBIG STL-11000 w/ internal filter wheel, AstroDon Filters

Acquisition Data

1/17/2009 to 2/20/2009 Chino Valley... with CCDAutoPilot3

Exposure

Ha        480 min.  (16 x 30 min. bin 1x1)

R,G & B  150 min.  (10 x 5 min. bin 1x1, Each)

Ha, Green & Blue are mapped to RGB respectively.  RGB data was overlaid to show the vdB75 & IC 444 nebulae.

The second image is a straight RGB composition.  

Click here for the narrow band color mapped image.
Click here for the B & W  Ha filtered image.

Software

CCDSoft, CCDStack, Photoshop CS w/ the Fits Liberator plugin, Noel Carboni's actions and Russell Croman's GradientXTerminator

CCDStack to calibrate, register, normalize, data reject & combine.

PhotoShop for color combine & non-linear stretching.

Comment

North is to the top.

On the right is IC 443, the Jellyfish Nebula.  This is a Galactic supernova remnant, in the constellation Gemini, that occurred 8,000 years ago. It is one of the best studied cases of supernova remnants, interacting with surrounding molecular clouds. IC 443 spans about 65 light-years at an estimated distance of 4900 light-years.

The large expanse, to the left and to the top of the image, is the emission nebula Sh2-249... at a distance of 5200 light years. Because it was so difficult to get good data with a red filter, I choose to use the Ha data for the red channel.

Above center, and a little to the right, is the bluish reflection nebula vdB75.

Just to the right and slightly up, from vdB75, a small white patch is visible. This marks the center of the emission and/or reflection nebula IC 444.  The structure of IC 444 is much more evident in the NB color mapped image.