This is a collaboration I did recently with the founder of Grand Mesa Observatory, Ret. Col. John Mansur captured from GrandMesaObservatory.com in Purdy Mesa, Western Colorado using the Holloway Takahashi 130 FSQ and QHY367C Full Frame CMOS camera.



I acquired the data in Color + H-Alpha and OIII, during post processing H-Alpha was added to the red channel and as a luminance layer, OIII was added to Green and Blue Channel.

For the Hubble Palette image these were captured using H-Alpha and OIII Chroma 5nm filters, I created a synthetic SII channel. The Soap Bubble Nebula can be seen in both images at 2 o clock from the crescent.

Total Integration time 9.6 hours

Image capture details

Terry Hancock

Location: GrandMesaObservatory.com Purdy Mesa, Colorado

Dates: several nights in May and June 2018

Color 336 min, 84 x 240 sec

H-Alpha 190 min, 19 x 600 sec

OIII 50 min, 5 x 600 sec

Camera: QHY367C

Offset 76, Gain 2850 Calibrated with flat, Dark & Bias

Optics: Holloway Takahashi FSQ130 APO Refractor

Filters by Chroma (Narrowband are 5nm)

Image Acquisition software Maxim DL5

Pre Processed in Pixinsight

Post Processed in Photoshop

About the Crescent Nebula Not your ordinary planetary nebula, which are produced when sun-like stars enter the last phase of their lives by becoming a red-giant and subsequently shedding their stellar atmospheres. The Crescent is, like other planetary nebulae, being ionized by it's parent star's intense radiation, but unlike most other planetary nebulae, The Crescent is also being ionized by the nearby Wolf-Rayet star "WR 136" whose intense winds are colliding with the material blown off by the Crescent's parent star. The end result is a beautiful image of two distinct shock waves colliding with each other in the depths of space, heating the gasses to temperatures so extreme that it emits X-ray radiation in addition to wavelengths within the visible spectrum of light.