Propeller Nebula, part of the great Cygnus complex - one of my favorite regions of the night sky, an interesting but less often imaged and slightly fainter object. It's an intriguing shape, very much like the propeller of an old plane, yet intertwined with the immense filamentary structures common to the north-western region of Cygnus (and in general, Cygnus contains many intriguing filamentary structures, not the least of which is the popular Crescent Nebula).

This image turned out to be quite a challenge due to the heavy smoke from fires in the west in the air at the time I was acquiring data. Sometimes the smoke was so thick I could barely see stars visually. While I have OIII and SII, the signals are so weak, even with many hours of integration, that I have not yet been happy with the results. Hopefully the weather will grant me another chance before Cygnus slips below the horizon to acquire the necessary data for a color image.

Data was ultimately "binned" 2x2 in order to hide some issues with the stars. I am using a Canon EF 600mm f/4 L II lens as my telescope. It is wonderful, especially for faint stuff, however it seems to have an issue with tilt somewhere. My stars require effectively perfect focus at all times, otherwise obvious issues appear. Further, with the smoke, the signal was weaker than I had planned for the nearly 6 hours of integration, and binning (even with a CMOS camera) helps. This was achieved by first processing the image in PixInsight at native size (deconv, NR with TGV, slight sharpening with MMT) then downsampling for maximum sharpness and star shape improvement.

This object, one I've long wanted to image and not had the chance, was my choice for first light with my new AP Mach 1 GTO mount, which I ordered early January this year. Was a long haul waiting for the mounts due to a manufacturing delay, and weather has further delayed getting any good data (I went for over 7 months the first part of the year with only about 5 clear nights, none of which I imaged on). As luck would have it, the dreaded Curse, bound by the sky gods whenever new gear is purchased, seems to have missed me this time. ;) Perhaps I paid my dues pre-emptively... Nevertheless, I've had two opportunities to use this amazing mount, and within a month of receiving it. Including a stretch of several clear nights in a row (still wondering if it was real! )