RCW 103: Hidden in the StarsOTA: CDK 24
Camera: Moravian 61000 Pro
Observatory: Heaven's Mirror
Date of Capture: 08/23
Date of Processing: 02/24
Exposures Used:
R: 10 x 150 sec
G: 10 x "
B: 10 x "
H: 10 x 1200 sec
S: 20 x "
O: 19 x "
Total Exposure time: 17.3 hours
Image Width: 28.6 arc-minutes
Processing Tools:
1. Commercial: PixInsight, Topaz, Photo Director 365, Aurora HDR, Luminar Neo, 3DLUT Creator
2. Pixinsight Addons: NoiseXTerminator, BlurXTerminator, StarXTerminator, GraXpert
3. My Scripts: NB_Assistant, AC_Restar, Subframe Weighting Tool (Excel w/ J. Hunt), ColorTweaker, StarTweaker
Target Description:
A difficult imaging target, hidden in a star-rich field of view, RCW 103 is a supernova from an explosion about 2,000 years ago. The star that exploded is now an X-ray source, the modest blue star near the center of the two sides of the cloud.
Processing Description:
Not only do abundant stars (faded in this presentation) conceal this nebula, but an intervening(?) faint nebula covers virtually all of this image. The Ha I have (probably all that was captured) borders on insufficient, making bringing forward the target even more difficult. It is usually imaged in X-ray wavelength, but not by amateurs! (See
https://swift.gsfc.nasa.gov/results/releases/images/rcw103/ ) Wikipedia devotes 2.5 lines to describing this object. Not surprisingly, a quick search of Astrobin uncovered zero amateur renderings of this object, although a few are posted online.
Target Statistics:
Distance: 10K ly
Pixel Span at Target: 57B km
Alex Woronow 
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