Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Cassiopeia (Cas)  ·  Contains:  27 Cas)  ·  27 gam Cas  ·  AW Cas  ·  BN Cas  ·  BO Cas  ·  HO Cas  ·  HQ Cas  ·  HT Cas  ·  IC 59  ·  IC 63  ·  LBN 604  ·  LBN 620  ·  LBN 622  ·  LBN 623  ·  LBN 625  ·  LDN 1290  ·  LDN 1291  ·  LDN 1298  ·  LDN 1300  ·  LDN 1302  ·  LDN 1310  ·  LDN 1312  ·  LDN 1313  ·  NGC 189  ·  NGC 225  ·  NGC 358  ·  NGC 381  ·  NGC 433  ·  OX Cas  ·  OY Cas  ·  And 20 more.
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IC63 The Ghost of Cassiopeia and her Shroud - SHO, George  Yendrey
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IC63 The Ghost of Cassiopeia and her Shroud - SHO

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
IC63 The Ghost of Cassiopeia and her Shroud - SHO, George  Yendrey
Powered byPixInsight

IC63 The Ghost of Cassiopeia and her Shroud - SHO

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Description

I have somewhat of a love / hate attitude toward IC63.  It is a difficult target to capture and can be an even more difficult target to post process for the same reasons - relatively small and dim nebula with a very bright star in close proximity (yCas).

This is a Telescope Live dataset from the SPA1-CMOS OTA in Spain (a Takahashi 106FSC with a QHY600M Full Frame CMOS camera).

My own data acquisition in LRGBHa and this one in SHO confirm that there is very little signal from this object outside Ha.  There is very little RGB, L, Oiii, or Sii signal to be had from this target.  By very little, I mean approaching none for some of these filters/spectra. 

However, the Ha blossoms across the full frame field with bright 'central' features and fine detail in the dimmer more distant reaches away from yCas.  

I processed the dataset in PixInsight and I strove to both preserve and enhance the Ha Ghost and her lacy shroud that surrounds her.  I created a separate Ha Channel optimized for use as a Lum channel that was added into the image to further enhance the fine Ha detail around the main nebula.  I toned the stars back a slight bit to ensure pride of place for the Ghost, but She would not be complete without the inherent jewelry of the dense star field in which she exists.

I think this may be my best result for this object, due in no small part to the excellent quality of the dataset made available by Telescope Live.

Please Like and Comment below, I would like to know what you think of the presentation of the Ghost of Cassiopeia.

From the EESA site for IC63:
About 550 light-years away in the constellation of Cassiopeia lies IC 63, a stunning and slightly eerie nebula. Also known as the ghost of Cassiopeia, IC 63 is being shaped by radiation from a nearby unpredictably variable star, Gamma Cassiopeiae, which is slowly eroding away the ghostly cloud of dust and gas. This celestial ghost makes the perfect backdrop for the upcoming feast of All Hallow's Eve — better known as Halloween.  The constellation of Cassiopeia, named after a vain queen in Greek mythology, forms the easily recognizable “W” shape in the night sky. The central point of the W is marked by a dramatic star named Gamma Cassiopeiae

The remarkable Gamma Cassiopeiae is a blue-white subgiant variable star that is surrounded by a gaseous disc. This star is 19 times more massive and 65 000 times brighter than our Sun. It also rotates at the incredible speed of 1.6 million kilometres per hour — more than 200 times faster than our parent star. This frenzied rotation gives it a squashed appearance. The fast rotation causes eruptions of mass from the star into a surrounding disk. This mass loss is related to the observed brightness variations. The radiation of Gamma Cassiopeiae is so powerful that it even affects IC 63, sometimes nicknamed the Ghost Nebula, that lies several light years away from the star. The ghost of Cassiopeia | ESA/Hubble (esahubble.org)

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IC63 The Ghost of Cassiopeia and her Shroud - SHO, George  Yendrey