SH2-230 is located in Auriga is very rich in gas and dust. It is very large and includes a number of other objects. These include IC405, IC410, IC417, and NGC 1931. SH2-232 is reported to be part of this object but is out of the frame to the Northwest. IC405 (a.k.a. the Flaming Star Nebula - SH2-229) is a very large emission nebula located approximately 1500 light-years away. There is a blue reflection nebula that resembles smoke located in the central portion. It gets its name because the rippling ribbon-like structure of the gas almost looks like burning flames.
The next headliner in this field is the large emission nebula IC410 (SH2-236). This nebula has more oxygen than IC405 giving it its bluish color in the central portion. It is also much further at an estimated distance of 10,000 LY. The ionizing source of this nebula is a 4 million year old cluster of stars, NGC 1893, whose stellar winds have sculpted two tadpole-like structures 10 LY long.
The other highlights include IC417 (SH2-234) - Spider Nebula and NGC 1931 (SH2-237) - Fly Nebula. I am not quite sure if I see a spider or a fly but nevertheless, they are gorgeous. The IC417 contains an open cluster consisting of hot young stars and is about 100 LY across and 10,000 LY away and NGC 1931 is both an emission and reflection nebula but only about 10 LY across.
This may be my first image that was completely from this year as I began on January 16. The plan was to collect a whole bunch of data which I did but I had to ditch almost a third of it as some of the nights I collected on were questionable, i.e. transparency was below average. Otherwise it was smooth sailing. Processing went well but I did make a couple of blue masks from the RGB data in order to enhance the reflection in the Flame which was obscured by the Hydrogen (This idea came from Christoph Lichtblau @christoph, link to his image of the Flame
https://www.astrobin.com/h6db6d/). I did a lot of tweaking with the star sizes in order to show them off but not have them overpower the nebulae - still not sure I am happy but satisfied. One of the benefits of collecting a lot of data is the background noise decreases which makes processing much easier.
Dates: 1-16-24, 1-17, 2-3, 2-4, 2-6, 2-7, 2-13, 2-14, 2-25, 2-29, 3-3
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