SH2-080

I'll get to the new planetary in a bit first the main object.

This is a retake of SH2-80 aka Merrill's star. It is a Wolf Rayet star and bubble rather than a planetary nebula as it is often cataloged. Much of the red likely comes from nitrogen rather than hydrogen as it is a WN 7 or WN 8 object. The N signifies strong nitrogen emission. Those with 3 micron Ha and NII filters can test this.

This time I took it at my full resolution of 0.5" per pixel though the night wasn't quite up to that. Still the result is much superior to the first image. The nebula contains virtually no OIII emission. When I took it in 2010 I was using my old Astrodon 1 filters. The green came up empty of any hint of green emission though most other images of the nebula show green. This puzzled me and others. Now that I have generation 2 Astrodon filters I wanted to see if that changed anything. It did slightly. Now I see a very very faint hint of green emission but it is super weak. The blue of H beta came through in both but is weak compared to the red. Likely because the red is mostly nitrogen rather than hydrogen emission as it is a nitrogen class Wolf-Rayet star. Still why did most images of this nebula show green when you looked at the color channels. I found out that it was the way the saturation of the image was done. If it was done after combining with the initial color data then pushed to normal levels it showed green that wasn't really there. If the saturation was done totally in the RGB combine and not changed once combined the green vanished -- too much, it turned black rather than staying at background levels. This time I did some push in RGB and some after the combine. Thus there is some green if you look at the posted image but that wasn't there in the original color data. It's an artifact of how the color was combined. I'm going to have to somehow download a copy of Pix Insight (takes hours on my slow internet) and see if it handles this more correctly than I and apparently others handle it in Photoshop. It will be an interesting test.

Now for the other reason for retaking this one. After I posted my earlier image a friend who images from central Berlin, Stefan Lilge, took the same field in narrow band and discovered a small uncatalogued planetary image. He checked my first image and it was there though I'd not noticed it. Not nearly as nicely seen as it was in his image but it did confirm he found something real. When he told me about it I contacted Sakib Rasool who got a pro to image it with the 2.1 meter KPNO telescope. It's discovery was released at a conference last week (2013) so I'm now free to cover it. The object is at 19h 12m 10.3s +16d 46' 35.6". That is in the lower left part of my image above and left of a bright (not the brightest) pair of blue stars. There's a field star that blocked much of the planetary in my LRGB image. Stefan's narrowband image dims the star making the nebula more visible. I tried to tone it down in this image but wasn't all that successful. Stefan's discovery image can be seen at http://ccd-astronomy.de/temp8/Sh2-80/Sh2-80colourcropgut.jpg . Orientation is about the same as mine so it too is to the lower left. Only his field is smaller so it is by the only bright pair of blue stars. The offending star on the right edge of the ring is quite faint in narrow band images. Somehow the Kitt Peak image doesn't even show it and severely dims the other stars in the field, completely hiding many in my image making a comparison hard. The planetary is now known as Li1. Li for Lilge of course. That's his only planetary so I've now completed my first catalog! Small as it is. When I took the second image I'd hoped to pick up the central star but failed. Nor is it seen in the Kitt Peak image though it has greatly suppressed stars so that isn't surprising I suppose. Odd they left in their hot pixels.

Ironically I am always harping on "Know what's in your image". I failed in this case, fortunately Stefan didn't and it is Li1 rather than Jo1. I've included a link to the poster from the conference showing all 37 candidates (greatly reduced to meet size limits) and a full size crop of Li1 from the poster. Note his discovery was made through the severe light pollution of his central Berlin balcony! That shows his great skills as a astrophotographer!

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=8x20' RGB=2x10'x2, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for SH2-080

SH2-082

Sh2-82/LDN129 is often called the Little Cocoon which it does resemble with the inner emission region and halo of reflection blue though it is much fainter and lower in the sky being in Sagitta. Galaxymap.org puts it at about 3600 light years. It is also known as the Little Triffid though I can't see the resemblance other than both emission and reflection elements are involved with both. The bright star in the center of the emission (red) region is HD 231616 which Galaxymap credits as being the illuminating star. There are several dark nebulae in the image identified at Simbad. But some I really wanted to know about aren't listed. Those that are I've noted on the annotated image though I left off a few that were so indistinct I couldn't see anything at those locations. Yet some very dark ones have no listing. It's very discouraging. SDC stands for the Spitzer Dark Catalog. Since the Spitzer space telescope operates deep in the infrared part of the spectrum it might be these stand out well at those wavelengths. I found no LDN or other visual dark catalog entries for this field.

This one needs a much wider field of view than I can give it. For that See Tom Davis' superb image at: http://tvdavisastropics.com/astroimages-1_000086.htm He used nearly 14 hours of data, over 10 times what I used so shows fainter detail.

Due to two massively bright satellites, one in red and one in green frames that I didn't know were there until I went to process this I am limited in color data for those channels. All attempts to process them out with only two frames failed miserably. Even my old darken combine trick didn't work, leaving some nasty color traces. I really need to put a lot more time into this one this summer.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RG=1x10'x3 B=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for SH2-082

SH2-083

SH2-83A is a small emission nebula with an infrared star cluster hiding within it from some reports. It is in Vulpecula just north of the far more famous Coathanger asterism. In fact, some images of the Coathanger pick up this nebula as well. The Coathanger dwarfs this tiny nebula. I can't find much on it, not even a distance estimate.

I wondered if it was SH2-83A where was SH2-83. According to Simbad, that object is 161 arcseconds southwest of SH2-83A. That puts it a bit over half way from SH2-83A to the right edge of my 0.8" per pixel cropped image on an angle of about 240 degrees from SH2-83A (4 O'clock -- remember west is to the right not east). There's a medium bright (for the frame) orange star just to the upper right of its position. Nothing is seen there in any image of the area I located. If anything exists there it is exceedingly faint. Many amateurs label SH2-83A as SH2-83 though according to SIMBAD that isn't correct. I don't know if the A version is just a correction of the position from an erroneous one or if there really are two objects here. I find working with many of these small nebulae can be very confusing at times.

Since this object is located in the Milky Way the starfield is very rich but held nothing of interest. The stars just blew up the JPG size without adding much. So I cropped the image down to about two thirds size by area but leaving the image scale at my usual 1" per pixel since this one is so small. The cropped image is at 0.8" per pixel.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for SH2-083

SH2-087

SH2-87 is a faint emission nebula 3.6 degrees northwest of M27 in Vulpecula. Distance estimates range 2100 parsecs +/- 200 parsecs. That's 6,800 light-years +/- 650 light-years for the parsec challenged out there. Another source put it at 7,500 light-years. It seems to consist of a large very faint cloud with two bright condensations and a moderately bright region east of the eastern bright region. Unfortunately, it was very low transparency the night I took this so I missed most of the faint region that extends east and north of the two bright regions. Also due to clouds of the 4 color frames per channel, I took only one of each color was usable and the blue channel was especially poor so my color is very suspect, especially in the fainter regions. I need to put this one back on the redo list for next summer.

The two condensations carry the very odd names of [CZY2003] S87E and [CZY2003] S87W, left to right or I should say east to west as the last letters indicate. These house Infrared star clusters. The eastern one appears to be the result of a collision of two star clouds.

14" LX200R @ f/10 under poor conditions, L=4x10' RGB=1x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for SH2-087

SH2-088

In April 2013 I ran an image taken in July 2012 of SH2-88. At the time I'd recorded it under its LBN notation of LBN 139. Color data, especially green and red were poor and I thought it too blue. I even put it down on my reshoot list. Figuring I'd never get to it I posted it anyway. Thanks to the "tower of babble" as I call the many catalog names for the same object it turns out I'd already retaken it under the designation of SH2-88 in October 2012 but as I was still processing July images I didn't realize it! Turns out I was right, it was too blue. Though it is still on the reshoot list as conditions in October, while better than July wasn't great and I still have some doubts this is really correct, just better. Here's the text from that original post.

SH2-88/LBN 139 is a small emission/reflection nebula in Vulpecula about 2.4 kpc (7,800 light-years) distant. It contains at least three separate star-forming regions in its about 1 minute diameter. To its west is a larger mostly reflection nebula around 10th magnitude GSC 02143-01279. SIMBAD shows no identifier for this nebula. I found an amateur who says SH2-88 is LBN 138 and the mystery reflection nebula is LBN 137 but both NED and SIMBAD point to rather obscure nebulae further west for these with LBN 139 being SH2-88. All appear to be part of the Vulpecula OB1 association. Other than this I found little on the field.

Transparency decreased steadily as I was taking the color data with the blue channel having clear skies but decreasing greatly by the time the last red frame was taken, (blue-green-red) was the order. I had to do a lot of compensation so the colors are rather suspect. Most images show SH2-88 as nearly all H alpha pink rather than only the center in my image with the rest blue. But they were listed as being H alpha for the luminance channel so they didn't pick up much of the reflection part. Those show the mystery nebula as rather white rather than blue. I have it down to retake the color data to verify my LRGB data. I suspect it is far too blue. Considering the weather I doubt I'll get to it for a while, unfortunately.

For those wanting to read more about the star-forming regions and more on Sh2-88 see:
http://cdsads.u-strasbg.fr/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?2000A%26A...360.1107D&db_key=AST&nosetcookie=1

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for SH2-088

SH2-090

Sh2-90, also known as LBN 144 is an HII region in Vulpecula. It is associated with Vulpecula OB1 association. It appears to be a rather strong radio source with many radio listings in NED such as PKS 1947+266. I can't find much on it. SH2-89, a far fainter and larger nebula is just to the south. The two may be connected as deep H alpha images show they appear to either overlap or be part of the same cloud. My LRGB image barely showed it but was so noisy what little was there didn't survive processing. I'd need far more time to show it.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for SH2-090

SH2-091

SH2-91/LBN147 is part of a huge supernova remnant in Cygnus. The remnant is sometimes called Cygnus' other Veil Nebula. Like the Veil, it is a shockwave bubble traveling through space. You see the interstellar medium as it is shocked into visibility by the shock wave. The entire shock wave is some 3° by 4° in size and at its distance of 2,500 light-years is over 225 light-years across. Fainter parts of the shock wave are cataloged as SH2-94 and SH2-96. The remnant is known as SNR 065.2+05.7 and is thought to have blown about 20,000 to 30,000 years ago. I didn't find much agreement on its age. The bubble, while larger than the Veil is much dimmer. SH2-91 is rather easy to find thanks to HD 185735, an 8th magnitude M2III star directly under it. 5th magnitude Psi (12) Cygni is about 15 minutes north and just out of my frame.

Due to the vast number of stars around this one I gave up using the luminance frames. They were picking up far too many stars. Instead, I used 2 hours of H alpha data for the luminance frame. This cut the stars down many fold making it easier to see the nebula. Like the Veil this one has lots of OIII emission but not having an OIII filter I didn't pick up much of it except at the northeastern end where it only had OIII emission for the most part. There the blue data was stronger than the H alpha data so shows through slightly. In pure RGB the nebula was all blue but so lost in the stars I gave up trying to bring it out. Most OIII/H alpha images show the left side cyan from OIII and the right side pink from H alpha. Someday I'll get an OIII filter but for now, it will have to be pseudo-colored by the H alpha alone. The stars are colored solely by RGB data applied to the luminance of the H alpha data.

14" LX200R @ f/10, shock wave: Pseudo L=HA4x10' R=2x10'+80% Ha G=2x10' B=2x10'+20%Ha, Stars: Pseudo L=Ha4x10', RGB=2x10', STL=11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for SH2-091

SH2-093

Sh2-93 is also known as LBN146. I can't find much at all on this emission nebula that is located in the constellation of Vulpecula a short distance east from SH2-90. Galaxy map has two distance measurements for it. One of about 12,000 light years and another of 8500 light years. It seems to prefer the latter. This is more in line with nearby SH2-90 they put at about 7800 light years. The nebula contains the hidden infrared star cluster [BDS2003] 16. The nebula is said to shine by the light of an 09V star but I'm unable to determine which one it is. It is [F89b] S93 1 for those with better catalogs than I have.

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10'x3, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for SH2-093

SH2-101

SH-2-101/LBN168, often known as the Tulip Nebula. It looks more like a rather dead one as it is really flat for a tulip as I see it. Just out of frame near the lower right is Cygnus X-1, the first known black hole. I didn't realize it was there when I took the shot or I'd have decentered the "tulip" to the east (left) a bit and picked it up. The nebula is in Cygnus about 6,000 light-years away. Normally I add H alpha to an LRGB image but this time I added H alpha to a pure RGB image. This was processed in 2007 when I had some processing issues and was just learning Photoshop. I'd likely do it very differently today.

14" LX200R @ f/10, Ha=3x30 RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for SH2-101

SH2-106

SH2-106 is a small nebula in Cygnus about 2000 light-years distant. It is often called the "Hourglass Nebula" for obvious reasons. It is 1.5 to 2 light-years across depending on which source you use. I get a bit under 1.5 light-years using my image and a distance of 2000 light-years. In the center of the nebula, between the two lobs and hidden by dust is the star that is creating this object. It is emitting hot jets of gas from its poles forming the two lobes seen in my image. It is a very young star only about 100,000 years old but about 15 times the mass of the sun. It is an O8 star. IR images indicate hundreds of low mass, brown dwarfs and protostars are hidden behind the dust as well as the illuminating O8 star. Some sources classify this as a planetary nebula but it is formed now from a dying star but one just born though due to its mass it won't live but a few more million years before dying a likely violent death as a supernova. For an image taken by the HST see: https://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1118a/

14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Related Designations for SH2-106