Focal Pointe Observatory
Astrophotography by Bob Franke

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vdB 152

 

Click the image for a ~ 50% size view. (1600 x 1200 - 1.15 MB)

  

Instrument

Takahashi FSQ-106ED @ f/5.0 (530 mm F.L.) Captured at 2.1 arcsec/pixel.  Shown at 4.31 and 9.21 arcsec/pixel.

Mount

Paramount MyT

Camera

SBIG STF-8300M Self Guiding Package w/ mono ST-i, using AstroDon E-Series LRGB filters.

Acquisition Data

10/22/2016 to 11/25/2016  Chino Valley, AZ with CCD Commander & CCDSoft. 

Exposure

Lum

   360 min. (36 x 10 min. each)  binned 1x1

RGB

 1080 min. (36 x 10 min. each)        "

 RGB combine ratios are 1.00, 0.98, 0.92

Software

  • PixInsight & Photoshop CS6.

  • eXcalibrator v5.0 for (g:r) color balancing, using 307 stars from the SDSS-DR9 database.

  • PixInsight processing includes calibration, registering, stacking, LRGB creation, gradient removal and non-linear stretching with HistogramTransformation .

  • Noiseware 5, a PhotoShop plug-in.

  • PhotoShop for final touch up.

Comment

North is to the top.

At the image bottom is the blue reflection nebula, Cederblad 201 . The extended dark nebula is cataloged as Barnhard 175. Together, they are known as Van den Bergh 152, in the constellation Cepheus.

To the upper left is the ancient planetary nebula Dengel-Hartl 5. The red filaments, extending to the image bottom, are part of the huge supernova remnant SNR 110.3+11.3. These two red objects give a wonderful contrast to the beautiful chocolate color of Bernard 175.

Max Wolf's assistant, August Kopff, photographically discovered the complex structure on October 21, 1908. To Wolf, it looked like a cave and he started calling it the Cave Nebula. Wolf also thought the nebula was an actual cave formation in the Milky Way stars. It was finally designated as vdB 152 and is still sometimes called Wolf's Cave.

Here is Max Wolf's Dec. 1908 announcement in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 69, p.117.