The Tulip Nebula (Sharpless (SH) 20-101) is an emission nebula that is located near the Cygnus constellation, ~ 6000 light years from the Earth. The nebula is ~ 70 light years wide and glows as a result of multiple young stars ionizing cosmic gas and causing it to emit light, the main star that excites the Tulip Nebula is HDE227018 (TYC2678-1231-1 in my photo – Tycho-2 catalog).
What is really interesting about this object, is its nearby neighbor, Cygnus X-1, a binary star system that contains the first black hole ever discovered in 1964 (based on being the brightest source of X-Rays). The biggest of the stars is a large blue super giant (HD226868). Unfortunately, this is outside my photo field of view.
Emission nebulae are nebula formed of ionized gases that emit light of various wavelengths. The most common source of ionization is high-energy ultraviolet photons emitted from a nearby hot star.
These pictures were shot with the IDAZ Dual Narrowband filter which is great for heavy light pollution areas (like mine), moonlight, and allows light transmission in two main frequency regions:
- Hydrogen Alpha (Ha) (red) at 656.3 nm with a bandwidth of 15nm
- Oxygen III (Oiii) (blue) at 500.7 nm with a bandwidth of 35nm
This image was processed in two color formats – One shot color (OSC) (which is dominated by the red spectrum) and HOO (Hydrogen, Oxygen, Oxygen) color scheme. Two get the HOO color scheme, I processed the image as OSC and then using Bill Blanshan’s Narrowband Normalization processing script.
These images that make up this picture were collected on November 16th, 18th, 19th, and 20th, as the moon was approaching first quarter, with an average light across the four nights of 17.94%). This is the first image with my larger Edge HD 8” telescope that I am publishing – It has been a challenge to learn how to use this setup, but being able to image smaller objects have been fun.
- My setup:
- Mount: EQ6R-Pro
- Telescope: Celestron Edge HD 8” with Celestron 0.7 Reducer – Focal Length is 1422mm with F7 aperture
- Guiding: Celestron OAG (Off-Axis Guider) and ZWO 290MM camera
- ZWO ASI2600MC Pro; Camera cooled to -10 deg C, with IDAZ Duo-Band Narrowband Light Pollution Reduction Filter
- Bortle-9 – South Los Angeles shot from my backyard
- Integration Time: 6 Hours 15 Minutes; Lights (115 @ 300 seconds); Darks (20 @ 300 seconds); Flats (35) & Dark Flats (30) – Lights were captured on October 16, 18, 19, & 20th, 2023.
- Image Processing: Pixinsight – Using videos from multiple youtube teachers and website. @Cosgrove’sCosmos (Thank you for your recent feedback in my image processing), @ViewintoSpace, @EnteringintoSpace, @Lukomatico – Lots of great on-line teachers/examples.
- Incorporated Russell Croman’s amazing products (Blur, Noise, and Star Xterminator}
My workflow is in the attached document.
Tulip Nebula 11192023.docx
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