Deep sky winners

 

 

1ST PLACE

 

Van den Bergh 152, Barnard 175, PN Dengel-Hartl 5, and SNR 110.3+11.3 in Cepheus

Mukund Raguram

 

Technical Infos:

Shot with: ES127mm CF scope, 0.7x reducer, Moonlite Nitecrawler focuser, QHY CFW-M with 36mm Chroma filters, QHY OAG, ZWO 290MM guidecam, QHY 268M camera, on a Paramount MyT. 25h Ha; 6h Oiii; 9.5h L; 3.5h R; 3h each BG. Total of 50 hours! Over 60 were shot during acquisition and trimmed down for best quality.

Image Description:

This is my all time best image. VdB 152 is a reflection nebula at the tip of dark dusty nebula Barnard 150, in Cepheus. It’s framed by two other fascinating features: a planetary nebula, DeHt 5, and an exceedingly faint, huge supernova remnant, 110.3+11.3, which took 25 hours of Ha in very dark, new moon skies to reveal. Please enjoy the beauty and diversity of these objects, and their accompanying star-field, in my image.

 

 

2ND PLACE

 

The Mushroom Cloud of Cygnus

Kevin Morefield

Technical Infos:

Takahashi FSQ106, Paramount MYT, QHY600M, Chroma SHO filters Ha 6 hours, OIII 6 Hours, SII 10 Hours Taken from my back yard in central Portland Oregon.

Image Description:

The title is a bit cheeky, but my goal with the image was to present the detail in the dark area that is usually seen as the Caribbean Sea when framed as the North American Nebula. However my framing here attempts to show how the Pelican, Cygnus wall, and unnamed similar structures on the left, frame a blue lagoon with the mushroom cloud of dark nebula in front. The entire North American Nebula is in there but it takes a bit of squinting to see!

 

 

 

3RD PLACE

 

HFG1/ Abell6

Fabre Julien

Technical Infos:

TSA120 and asi294MM on Avalon Linear 220x 300s Ha 220x 200s OIII 90x 120s RGB ( for stars) Total around 40h

Image Description:

Heckathorn-Fesen-Gull 1 (HFG1) and Abell 6 are a duo of planetary nebulae from the constellation Cassiopea. The central star of HFG1 is a 14.5 mag binary star. It leaves behind a gas tail of at least 20 ‘. She is said to be around 10,000 years old. The structure of HFG1 presents an arc of a circle opposite the tail, in the direction of movement of the nebula, which suggests that it is a shock wave front of matter interacting with the interstellar medium. Abell 6 is an example of a bubble-shaped planetary nebula. However, it remains quite faint (Mag = 15). It emits more in OIII than in Ha.

 

 

4TH PLACE

 

NGC 4038/NGC 4039 two dancing galaxies

Thomas Klemmer

Technical Infos:

Scope: 20″ f/3,8 Newtonian (AK3) Camera: ASI 6200 MMPro Filter: Chroma LRGB Total exposure time: 8h 30m Site: IAS Observatory @Hakos Astro Farm Namibia

Image Description:

A unique sight in the sky. NGC 4038 (left node) & NGC 4039 (right node) are a pair of interacting galaxies in the constrellation Corvus. The two galactic nuclei are in the process of merging into a new giant galaxy, alby creating tidal streams spreading more then 100.000 light years in the process. Utilizing a large 20″ newtonian I was able to reach enough depth to display the vast amount of background galaxies and galaxy clusters giving this image a depth of several hundred million light years.

 

 

 

5TH PLACE

 

Elephant’s Trunk nebula

Alexandru Babiuc

 

Technical Infos:

I used for this image ZWO LRGB and 6nm Astronomik Ha and O[III] filters to capture the data, then I combined the resulting two panels into a single RGB-HOO panorama. I tried to keep the colors close as possible to the natural ones. I shot a total of more than 40h of exposures through a SkyWatcher Esprit 80 and a modified Canon 550D for some RGB and a SkyWatcher 72ED and LRGB + Ha + O[III] filters and a ZWO ASI 1600. Sometimes the AZ-EQ5 carried both scopes on both sides.

Image Description:

The Elephant Trunk (IC1396A) is a nebula formed by interstellar gas and dust, surrounded by the ionized gas area (IC1396). It is about 2400 light-years away, observable in the Cepheus constellation. Most of the nebula emits light due to the gas energized by the triple system seen in the image center, but there are also areas where the light is blocked or reflected by dust. The brightest star in the image is Mu Cephei or the Garnet Start, a red supergiant. It is also one of the biggest observed stars, with a radius of more than 1000 times larger than our Sun and almost 100000 brighter. Its size also surpasses Jupiter’s orbit around the Sun.

 

 

 

6TH PLACE

 

A detailed view of NGC 6888 The Crescent Nebula

Chad Leader

 

Technical Infos:

June, 2021 Bortle 8/9, near Washington DC (Brentwood, MD) Bortle 8/9 Celestron Edge HD 8 w/0.7x reducer (1422mm focal length) ZWO ASI294MM Pro, gain 200, -10°C Antlia 3.5nm Ha and OIII filters Sky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro Mount Celestron OAG with ASI174MM mini ASIair Pro Ha = 60 x 300s (5 hours) OIII = 111 x 300s (9.25 hours) Total integration – 14.25 hours

Image Description:

This narrowband image was captured in June of 2021 and is in HOO palette. The Crescent Nebula is in the constellation Cygnus, about 5000 light-years away. It is an emission nebula caused by the fast stellar wind from the Wolf-Rayet star WR 136. When processing this image, I wanted to bring out the wispy details of the H-alpha in red, while also prominently displaying the ionized oxygen shell surrounding the nebula.