SH2-129 Something New

Good evening fellow star botherer, and thanks for dropping by.  As all astronomers know, clear nights are like busses, and before you know it, you are in middle of the clearest run of nights for months.  That has lead to a big glut of data to work through.  So while we're now back to weather warnings of fog, and the usual winter UK weather, I can finally start processing some data.  But that hasn't exactly gone without a hitch...

Rather than tackle one data set at a time from beginning to end, I've create a flat, dark and flat dark library set, and then run each set of data through PixInsight's WBPP script.  That took around a week's worth of evenings to do just on it's own!  That has left me with a selection of master files I can now take on for processing.

I mentioned that it hadn't all gone entirely to plan though...  On 2 out of the 6 sets of data I've crunched, I did an initial stretch of the master image, just to see what I had to work with, but I was disappointed to see that there were all sorts of interference and weird artifacts on the master image.  They seemed to move and change as I zoomed in or out of the image, but were still always present.  I even went through the full processing routine to see if it was just an issue with my monitor resolution, but alas no.  That was not the cause.  Rather than deleting the source data, I'm going to keep it for a while, and perhaps revisit the scanning process another time.  

So, for the image in this post, which should be the first in a series of 4, I turned to SH2-129.  It's know by several names like the Squid Nebula, or the Flying Bat Nebula.  It's a target that I've seen imaged a great deal in recent years, but it's always looked like it's only been in the domain of mono imagers with dozens if not hundreds of hours on it.  I thought it would be fun to try it out with my 26c OSC.  The result was OK, and kind of what I expected to be honest.  The blue area which gives it the name of the Squid Nebula just hasn't been picked up by my OSC camera unfortunately.  There is slight colouration there, but nothing for certain.  Perhaps with another 6 or 9 hours on it, I might be able to get a bit more colour, but unlikely.

I am pleased with the HA signal in red coming through around the edge of the image though.  For those who are unaware, the larger red and blue stars in the centre of the image are usually surrounded by a squid shaped region of blue (OIII?) gas.  Just not in my image! 😂  You'll just have to use your imagination!

Next image off the data set is in the middle of being processed as I type, so at some point in the coming days, I'll put that one up too.  Until then though, thanks for reading, and happy gazing :-)