Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Cepheus (Cep)  ·  Contains:  77 Dra  ·  HD197637  ·  HD197665  ·  HD202505  ·  HD202900  ·  LBN 550  ·  LBN 552  ·  LBN 555  ·  LDN 1228  ·  PGC 2772765  ·  PGC 2774102  ·  PGC 2774471  ·  PGC 2775067  ·  PGC 3086077
Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
The Fighting Dragons of Cepheus and Their Treasures, David Payne
The Fighting Dragons of Cepheus and Their Treasures, David Payne

The Fighting Dragons of Cepheus and Their Treasures

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
The Fighting Dragons of Cepheus and Their Treasures, David Payne
The Fighting Dragons of Cepheus and Their Treasures, David Payne

The Fighting Dragons of Cepheus and Their Treasures

Equipment

Loading...

Acquisition details

Loading...

Description

LBN550, LBN552, LBN555, LDN1228, and an extremely small, Unnamed emission nebula (Cepheus), June 2023Televue 127is; AP Mach2 GTO   ASI6200MM, - Baader LRGB Cmos-Optomized Broadband filtersL: (72 x 180s exposures, Bin 1x1, Gain 100)R,G,B: (37,42,34 x 240s exposures, Bin 1x1, Gain100) The Dark Nebulae that make up the Fighting Dragons of Cepheus are as dramatic as its name.   These molecular clouds and in the processing of condensing/collapsing and fragmenting their way into being star producers in a demonstration of “order out of chaos” and seemingly (although not really) reducing entropy.   What causes the clouds to nucleate and accumulate is not fully understood (or at least not expressed) by my references but it is likely a combination of gravity and other intermolecular forces (Van der Waals?).  It is understood that the gas/dust cloud must be very, very, cold (<10K) or molecular jiggling will prevent the molecules from sticking together.   Eventually these collapsed molecular cloud regions will form protostars that will eventually ignite in fusion and create emission nebula.  I have yet to check with a Ha filter, but I believe a very small emission nebula, with a single new star at its centre, can be seen in the arm/head? of the left-hand-side dragon and is indicated on the second/mouse over image.   There is something for everyone in this image, aside from violent dragons – a tiny double star right on the edge of resolution just below the emission nebula, other reflection nebula and even galaxies to boot.  In creating this image, I made use of the new Cranfield/Blanshan star reduction script.  It creates great results, although I admit I haven’t tried out anywhere near all the options.   (For the annotated image, I was trying Mikes “DrawAnnotation” script too – easy to use and great results too.)   Of course, I also used GHS to tease out the dragons from the rest of the cloud – also a process created by Mike and myself).  You can check out these, now essential, scripts and download them for free at cosmicphotons.com.

Comments

Revisions

  • Final
    The Fighting Dragons of Cepheus and Their Treasures, David Payne
    Original
  • The Fighting Dragons of Cepheus and Their Treasures, David Payne
    B

B

Title: Dragons of Cepheus - Pixinsight and Hand Annotated

Description: Hand Annotations done by Mike Cranfield's "DrawAnnotation" Script.

Uploaded: ...

Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

The Fighting Dragons of Cepheus and Their Treasures, David Payne