HD 21291 is a B9Ia supergiant star that illuminates a nearby reflection nebula to the southwest. The combination is vdB 14. For the position, van den Berg used the illuminating star's position. Usually that star was in the nebula so that system worked but in this case, the star is so far from the nebula in angular distance I'd miss nearly all the nebula if I put it in the field or even used the published coordinates for vdB14 to center the image. While vdB14 is the common name for the nebula vdB nebula have other catalog names that do center on the nebula itself. So I figured I'd look that up and use that as my coordinates. Turned out it did have one other listing, GN 03.25.0, but that is just a catalog of catalogs so uses similar coordinates from the vdB catalog. SIMBAD shows no other designation for the object, certainly none even close to its actual position. I ended up manually centering it, something I rarely do any more.
The glare from HD 21291 is seen in the upper right corner. It is also known as CS Camelopardalis a pulsating variable star. Hipparcos puts it about 4,300 light years away. The reflection nebula is obviously at about this distance as well to be so strongly lit by the star. Because of the reflections, the star caused when nearer the field I had to off center the nebula to keep the glare and reflections to a minimum. No way could I escape the huge arc the star creates thanks to reflecting between the optical window of the CCD and the SCT's flat corrector plate.
There are 5 galaxies from the 2MASS in the image. All very faint and starlike without redshift or even magnitude data so I've not tried to point them out. It's a somewht pretty field but pretty barren otherwise. I can't even find any study of vdB14 that's been published. As there's no fine detail to this object I'm posting it at 1.5" per pixel.
14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME
http://www.mantrapskies.com/image-archive/vdB/VDB014/VDB14L4X10RGB2X10-67.JPG
http://www.mantrapskies.com/image-archive/vdB/VDB014/VDB14L4X10RGB2X10.JPG
http://www.mantrapskies.com/image-archive/vdB/VDB014/VDB14L4X10RGB2X10CROP.JPG
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| The reflection nebula vdB 16 is part of a huge complex known as the Perseus Molecular Cloud or sometimes the Cloud of Perseus. It is a huge area of the sky full of dust, new star formation, emission and reflection nebula etc. that is seen when near an illuminating or exciting star. The cloud is listed as being about 900 to 1000 light years distant depending on the source I looked at. The star at the heart of vdB 16 is SAO 75942 a magnitude 9.16 F0V star that The Sky puts at about 2,500 light-years. Thus over twice as far as the cloud. If right it is an imposter for the star lighting up the nebula. The blue star above the nebula is HIP 16164, a magnitude 9.65 A0 star with a distance by The Sky of 1042 light-years. That is more reasonable and since the error bars for parallax at that distant are quite large it even fits the 900 light-year distance. So is it the illuminating star? I found nothing to answer this question.
While the nebula is considered part of the Perseus Molecular Cloud the cloud extends into other constellations. This nebula is actually in very northeastern Aries just south of Perseus and west of Taurus. The nebula is also known as [RK68] 10 and GN 03.25.3.
14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME | 
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| vdB 24 is an interesting reflection nebula in Perseus probably illuminated by the star XY Persei, a 9th magnitude variable star that can dim down to magnitude 11. It is also a double star, an A2II and a B6e separated by about 1.3" of arc. Parallax puts the star at about 390 light-years. I would assume that is also the distance to vdB 24. Though I've found references to it being much further, 1,140 light-years.
The Holoea, from sometime back is a YSO (Young Stellar Object) which is a protostar just turning on. The Holoea was accompanied by a stream of gas it was somehow creating. The papers I looked at on it considered YSOs very rare. Yet there are 4 of them in this image! Two are easy to spot, the other two are IR objects though there's a hint of something around the eastern one of these two if you blow up my annotated image. I have labeled all 4 with a line drawn to the position for the YSO. The northernmost looks like a fairly bright star. It's far brighter in far IR frequencies. Below it is a rather white star that marks the position of the other visible YSO. Neither show any sign of a gas stream. There's no obvious object at the positions of the other two though they shine rather brightly in far IR light. The easternmost one shows a smudge on the POSS 2 IR film image that is much brighter than the smudge on my visible light image (I block IR from reaching the camera). I thought it just noise in my image but it is exactly the same spot as the smudge in the POSS 2 IR image. I see nothing in the POSS 2 IR image at the position of the 4th YSO however.
The image was taken over 3 very poor nights. Even though this is made up of 110 minutes of luminance compared to my normal 40 it doesn't begin to go as deep as I normally go in 40 minutes. I marked it for a redo but that hasn't happened so I processed this.
In praise of the Paramount ME, I'll just mention that ALL 23 frames were stacked without alignment even though taken over 3 days. The ability to return several nights later to exactly the same point without effort still amazes me, even after 6 years. Though in this case if I'd known I'd be taking so many frames I'd have dithered and thus had to align.
14" LX200R @ f/10, L=11x10' RGB=4x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME Related Designations for VDB024VDB024, | 
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| The variable star RY Tauri is the apparent light source of the reflection nebula vdB 27, also known as GN 04.18.8. Many wide-field images of the region are on the net but few go in for a close up like I did so miss the fine wave-like structure in the nebula. It's on the edge of the Taurus molecular cloud that's a rich source of objects like this. So much so most images are wide-field to capture several of them. Not having such a scope set up for such imaging I had to settle for just one at a time. Hipparcos puts the star and hence the nebula at about 435 light years from us. The spectral type of the star varies from F8Ve to K1Ve. This is due to its struggle to move from a protostar getting its energy from gravitational collapse to the main sequence where its energy comes from fusing hydrogen into helium. It's considered to be a T Tauri type star so at that stage of growing up to become an "adult" star.
The dark cloud above it is Barnard 214. The large faint nebula covering much of the frame centered a bit south of vdB 27 is LBN 785. Two asteroids also put in an appearance.
A close up of this nebula taken with the 8.2 meter Gemini North telescope is at http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap050923.html . It shows the star redder than when I imaged it. Not surprising for a star that goes from a somewhat blue F8 to a somewhat orange K1 star. They must have caught it closer to the K1 state than I did. In the Gemini image, the orange star to the lower left has nebulosity. None of that shows in my image. I went back to the FITs to hunt for it but nothing I did could bring it out. I suppose my resolution is too low so the glare from the star is hiding it. Still, that doesn't seem to be sufficient. I'm wondering if it might not be a variable nebula of some sort.
14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10 RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME | 
VDB27L4X10RGB2X10-ID.JPG
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| VdB 31 is a reflection nebula around the 7th magnitude A0 star HD 31293 in Auriga about 470 light-years from earth. Some dark molecular clouds are also seen in my image. Barnard 27 is the dark nebula immediately west (left) of vdB 31. Toward its western end is the short, highly slanted trail of asteroid (62962) 2000 VA43 at magnitude 19.8. Further west going off the frame is the dark nebula Barnard 26. It is quite a bit larger than Barnard 27 but its extent is mostly off my frame. Directly above (north) vdB 31 is the dark nebula Barnard 28. It too lies partly out of frame. Between Barnard 28 and Barnard 27 is a small, mostly round dark nebula. Some sources claim it is also part of Barnard 27 making Barnard 27 a double nebula. SIMBAD, however, indicates only the southern cloud as Barnard 27. It gives the designation TGU H1887 for the double nebula with the bright region separating the two the designation of TGU H1887 P1. TGU stands for the Tokyo Gakugei University catalog. The P1 designation is for a small clump in the main cloud. The catalog list 2841 such clumps, some dark nebula have more than one and some none. The first clump would be P1 the second if present P2 etc.
I found very few images of vdB 31 on the net. All of which were very wide angle and missed much of the beautiful detail to be found in this exquisite reflection nebula.
Besides the asteroid already mentioned there are two more in the image. (140367) 2001 TP28 shines at magnitude 19.7 east of vdB 31 about 75% of the way to the left edge of my image. It too is slanting downward, just not as steeply as (62962) 2000 VA43. Easier to find, as it is on the north edge of Barnard 26 at the very top right of my image, is (13960) 1991 GF8 at magnitude 18.3.
Even with the dust, a few IR strong galaxies from the 2 Micron Sky Survey are seen in the image. Most are starlike. Apparently, only their cores are making it through the dust to my sensor. The obvious exception is 2MASX J04553838+3037595 a short distance east of vdB 31. It appears to be an edge on spiral. NED had little on it, not even a magnitude.
14" LX 200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10' (14 of 24 frames discarded due to severe weather damage), STL-11000XM, Paramount ME | 
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| vdB 047 is a yellow-orange reflection nebula in northeastern Taurus 1.75 degrees northeast of the more famous M1. Its positional star is HD 37387 a magnitude 7.5 KIIb star. The nebula likely lies behind the star since it has pretty much the same color as the star indicating it is reflecting the light rather than scattering blue light due to the star being behind the nebula. The Sky puts the star, and thus the nebula, 3700 light-years distant.
This star is one of 4 that makes up the multiple star WDS STF 755. The AB pair is the blue pair 2.5 minutes southwest of the illuminating star. These two are separated by about 6" best I can tell. This pair is shown with a distance of 177 light years. They may be a true double, I've not investigated further. The fourth member of the WDS system is the reddish 10th magnitude star 1.3' south of the illuminating star. I can't find a distance for it but doubt it is related to the KIIb illuminating star.
The nebula is also known as GN 05.36.2. Some sources claim it is Sh2-243 though the position doesn't match. There is no known object at the position of Sh2-243. Still, its position is nearby so some think this might be what Sharpless saw. Though Sharpless objects are usually strong in hydrogen alpha light. This one has some very weak hydrogen alpha light in the southern part but it shines mostly by reflected starlight A KIIb star isn't going to ionize hydrogen gas so that emission isn't due to the illuminating star. The nebula is extremely faint in blue light, this may have fooled Sharpless into thinking he was seeing ionized hydrogen in the red POSS plate. I couldn't find a satisfactory answer to the question of Sh2-243. To me, the case for it being vdB 047 is pretty weak.
14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME | 
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| vdB 123/GN 18.27.9 is a very blue reflection nebula in Serpens Cauda about 836 light-years distant. This is based on The Sky's distance for the illuminating star HD 170634 of 52,888,500AU. To the west is an orange nebula. Not H alpha pink. It is also a reflection nebula. The only identification of the nebula I could find in SIMBAD was Name Ser(pens) (Reflection) Nebula/Name Ser (mol) Cloud Core and GN 18.27.4, each with a slightly different position all inside the nebula. So why is it so orange? I couldn't find an answer. It could be seen through a lot of dust that reddens it to this color or possibly the star in front that is illuminating it really is red and not dust reddened so the nebula is taking on its color. But it seems too faint though the illuminating star of McNeil's nebula is very dim from our vantage point due to dust. I have no answer here. If anyone has an idea let us know.
The colors of the field seem odd. Most stars are greatly reddened by dust yet there's a large blue haze over much of the field from the large, but dim, extent of the vdB 123 lying in front of the reddening dust it would seem. In places, all stars are blocked. SIMBAD lists a ton of young stellar objects and HH objects in the area, most apparently dust-shrouded as I see nothing of most of them in my image. Those I do see are labeled in the annotated image. Y*O for Young Stellar Objects and HH for the one Herbig Haro object I could identify. Note nearly all the stars and Y*Os have the same color. The YSOs were mostly K and M stars so are rightly red but there should be some variation but there isn't. I think this a good sign the color is mostly from dust reddening.
There were a very few YSOs that were A stars so should have been rather blue but even they were redder than an A star should be, another indication of dust reddening. When I adjusted those to be about right the blue of the reflection nebula went way too blue indicating it is likely in front of much of the dust. The annotated image notes the spectral type of a few of these young stellar objects
14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME | 
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| vdB 124 is a reflection nebula around the star HD 170740 in Scutum about 700 light years away. It is the central part of the larger reflection nebula IC 1287. At magnitude 5.7 the B2V star made imaging this one difficult. I get nasty reflections from the corrector of the SCT with strong blue stars that fills much of my field with a round blue glare with a bright ring edge. I had to do a lot of processing to remove it and still leave the nebula.
Its declination near 11 degrees south declination limits my imaging time and resolution. I only was able to get one night on it within an hour of the meridian. It needs a lot more to catch the outer parts of IC 1287. That just didn't happen when the weather failed to cooperate. A common story for 2012.
14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME | 
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| This field in western Vulpecula is centered on HD 182918, the illuminating star for vdB 126. The Sky has its distance at about 2900 light-years. It is located in the Milky Way but in a dust lane which helps hold down the stars at the same time reddening them quite a bit. Three dark clouds cross the image right to left they are Dobashi 1980, 1982 and 1988.
The only other object identified at SIMBAD of interest is what SIMBAD calls PN PM2-41 a possible planetary nebula. If it is it is the strangest planetary nebula I've seen. It has a cometary-like tail going to the south and above it at the orange star above is a faint arc of nebulosity that appears related. SIMBAD sites three papers on this object, one is the original IRAS discovery of it. The other two, however, are on protostars in which it is listed as IRAS 19247+2238. The authors are quite sure it is a protostar, exactly the opposite of a planetary nebula. The former is the birth of a star while the latter the death of a star. This article considers both the upper and lower object to be protostars that IRAS' low resolution saw as one object rather than two. The later paper on this is seen here: http://iopscience.iop.org/1538-3881/138/5/1193/pdf/1538-3881_138_5_1193.pdf PN PM2-41 looks typical of some protostars I've imaged in the past and nothing like any planetary I've taken so I'll go with these two papers that consider it a protostar. The paper was unable to come up with a distance measurement for either, unfortunately.
This image was taken when the skies were smoky from Canadian wildfires. It was less the night it was taken but it has likely skewed my color balance somewhat. It certainly reduced my limiting magnitude by at least one magnitude, maybe a bit more. Still, this was the first July night I could even collect photons as prior nights only stars 2.5 magnitude or brighter were visible at the zenith. No stars were seen below 45 degrees, just the planet Venus and a hint of Jupiter. Earlier in the month when I looked at the moon it was fainter and redder than at all but the darkest total eclipse I've seen. Yet the fires were about 800 km away with most over 1000 km.
My The Sky6 Pro's database locates "SAC vdB 126" about 13' east and a bit south of its real position. Those slewing to it with that program should use HD 182918 instead.
14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME | 
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| vdB 128 is a mostly reflection nebula around a pulsating variable star in Cygnus. I found little distance information but one source lists a very iffy estimate of about 3600 light-years (1100 parsecs). I found revised Hipparcos data saying 0.00057" for the parallax of the illuminating star. If right that puts it some 5700 light-years away. The star is V1768 Cyg to variable star observers. SAO 69362 or HD 190603 are more general catalog entries for it. At magnitude 5.6 it was a major pain to deal with! Fortunately, my new filters eliminated most reflection issues.
Objects in the vdB catalog, while classed as reflection nebula often have some or even a lot of H alpha emission as well. Note the red streaks of H alpha throughout this reflection nebula.
This object is a good opportunity for me to again address what I call the f ratio myth. That is, that the faster the optics (lower the f ratio) the less exposure time you need for faint objects using a CCD. That is true of typical snapshots with an ordinary camera, digital or film. With such a camera taking an earthly picture at f/8 you do need 4 times the exposure compared to f/4. This isn't necessarily true when applied to CCD images of the night sky. Though many can't seem to shake this myth.
A camera lens changes its aperture when "stopping down". Thus it gets less light and needs more exposure time. With a telescope, the focal length changes via extenders and compressor lenses. This doesn't change the amount of light being seen by the sensor for a given area say 0.5" of arc. A zoom camera lens does the same adjusting its aperture internally as you zoom in and out. For some reason imagers use up to 10 to 1 zoom lenses without seeing a light loss but seem to think a focal length change of even 2:1 is fatal for deep sky imaging and get an f/3 to an f/5 system for imaging rather than an f/10 one then complain the image scale is too small. Edit: New CMOS cameras with very small pixels give these back the image scale they want.
Choose a fast system for its wide field of view not because it will save you imaging time. Aperture is what will reduce or increase your imaging time, not f ratio at a given image scale.
14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME Related Designations for VDB128VDB128, | 
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