Astrophotography

Cone Nebula-Rosette Nebula Region

Over the years I have imaged the Cone and Rosette nebulae separately. I decided to give a mosaic a try this year, 16 panels

Here's the aforementioned Cone and Rosette images:

       Details on Flickr: https://flic.kr/p/QZyZct

Details on Flickr: https://flic.kr/p/DDLM5D

                                   

I used Asimoplan with SkyTools 3 to plan the mosaic and exported the coordinates into my acquisition software APT. I started the mosaic in late February.

Initially I captured the Hydrogen-Alpha(HA) filtered images. I "hand" assembled and blended them using Photoshop CS6. I was only able to capture 14 of 16 my first outing:

https://flic.kr/p/SodUhF

After patiently waiting for the clouds to clear, I finished up the HA and moved on to the RGB. Here's panels 1-8 I captured, blended with the HA from above:

https://flic.kr/p/S3DR87

So finally on March 28 I was able to collect all remaining panels and finish the mosaic:

https://flic.kr/p/TnD3fQ

16 panel mosaic

The original image measured 12583x16454 pixels and was 1.7GB in size. It has been downsized to 25% of original

Each panel consists of

HA 10x60 seconds

R-10x30 seconds

G-10x30 seconds

B-10x30 seconds

(6h 40m)

11" Celestron EdgeHD+Hyperstar

QHY163M

Optolong Filters

The Christmas Tree and Cone Nebulas can be seen on the left, while the Rosette is on the right. In addition to these more common nebulae is IC2169 in the upper left. Many more objects can be spotted in the annotated version:  Cone to Rosette Nebula Annotated

 [RA:+06 38 07.38 Dec:+07 29 27.31]
Resolution ........ 5.646 arcsec/pix
Rotation .......... -90.611 deg
Focal ............. 138.81 mm
Pixel size ........ 3.80 um
Field of view ..... 6d 22' 15.8" x 4d 56' 3.7"
Image center ...... RA: 06 38 07.372  Dec: +07 29 27.37
Image bounds:
   top-left ....... RA: 06 27 58.836  Dec: +10 38 01.67
   top-right ...... RA: 06 28 21.787  Dec: +04 16 41.18
   bottom-left .... RA: 06 48 01.645  Dec: +10 41 24.51
   bottom-right ... RA: 06 48 07.168  Dec: +04 20 01.63

I plan on giving some of the smaller objects more attention. I found this reflection nebula IC2169 in the top left interesting. I need to add some Luminance frames and more RGB, but here's a preview: