Collecting Photons

NGC 6888, VdB 132 - LBN 203 Cygnus

North is to the top 1600x1076

Objects: The Crescent Nebula (NGC 6888), LBN 203, 205, 208, 215 (emission nebulae); VdB 102 (reflection nebula).

Constellation: Cygnus

Coordinates of field center: 20h 12m +38° 44'

Notes: This is a very, bright nebula immersed in a HII region rich of obvious details. The Crescent itself has a strong OIII components that provides beautiful hues of color not present in the background dominated by the Hα fluorescence.

Telescope and camera: ASA 10', f 3.6; SBIG STL 11000.

Exposure: Hα 12x16'; R, B 10x10'; G 9x8'. Almost 8 hrs total.

Date: 4 nights on 8, 13, 16, 17-06-2010.

Software used: acquisition, CCDsoft. Calibration; registration and stacking: CCDstack, Registar; processing: PixInsight, Photoshop CS.

Processing notes: handling the stars required lots of work. This is typical of this area of Cygnus, so rich in bright stars. Like usual a major effort went into maintaining the correct star colors.

Full resolution detail of VdB 132

At only 36" of diameter, VdB 102 is one of the smallest objects in the van den Bergh catalogue. It is placed near the upper left corner and at the image scale of the full field it is basically invisible if not after close inspection. Here is shown at full resolution: stars are not nicely shaped, due to a less than perfect collimation at the time of acquisition.

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Send anything that comes to mind to Gimmi Ratto gimmi@in.cnr.it