A Wizard and Lion in Hydrogen Alpha
A Wizard and Lion in Hydrogen Alpha
A Wizard and Lion in Hydrogen Alpha
The constellation of Cepheus contains a plethora of all types of nebulae. Spanning 8 degrees by 5 degrees, this widefield view is peppered with many of these nebulae. Included in this image are the Wizard Nebula (the large and bright red emission nebula towards the upper left), the Lion Nebula (Sh2-132 - the large emission nebula near the bottom of the image), Sh2-134 (the large and faint complex of emission nebulae at upper right), and Barnard 171 (the large dark nebula in the upper right corner).

This Ha data was used to create the color HaRGB version of this field of view.

In this image, North is up. This image is cropped to 74% of the original frame.

Exposure Details
Lens Canon EF 200mm f/2.8L II USM
Focal Length 200mm
Focal Ratio f/3.5
 
Mount Schaefer GEM - 7 1/2 inch Byers gear
Guiding Celestron C-8, Lodestar autoguider, PHD Guiding
 
Camera Hutech modified Canon 6D
Exposure 82 x 600 sec @ ISO 1600 (13 2/3 hours) using an Astronomik 6nm Ha clip filter
Calibration 30 darks, 30 flats, 30 flat darks, 30 bias
 
Date August 17, 18, and 19, 2014
Temperature 67F on 8/17, 64F on 8/18, 57F on 8/19
SQM Reading 21.35 (Bortle 4) on 8/17, and 8/19; 21.40 (Bortle 4) on 8/18
Seeing 8/17-2/5, 3/5 on all other nights
Location Pine Mountain Club, California
 
Software Used Images Plus 5.75 for camera control, Images Plus 6.0 for calibration, stacking, digital development, feature mask, star masking, and star shrinking. Photoshop CS5 used for levels and curves high pass filter, and unsharp mask. Gradient Xterminator for gradient removal. Registar for registration and stack alignment.
Notes