Last Winter Nebulae this Year

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One of the reasons for getting the Hyperstar optics for my C9 last year was the fact that objects like M42 are almost impossible to properly capture with a normal reducer or let alone at full focal length. Now with the winter almost over I noticed that somehow other projects were always taking precedence in the very few clear nights we had during the past moths.  So I started imaging M42 using the Optolog L-eXtreme while the Moon was still out. Luckily I was able to add more frames without Moon getting to almost 10.5h total exposure time. In processing I tried to find a compromise between showing the structure of M42 itself and the surrounding nebulosity.


M42


The next object I started imaging, again with the Hyperstar and the Optolong L.eXtreme filter, was the Seagull Nebula. If you want to show the beautiful Seagull features of this nebula it is a slightly bigger object, so I had to compile it as a mosaic. Each mosaic tile has 5h exposure time (150x2mins).


IC2177
IC2177 - Seagull Nebula


The last object in this series is NGC2264 the nebulous region around the so called "Christmas Tree Cluster" that includes the Cone Nebula. 

NGC2264







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