Sh2-174, a likely planetary nebula, is one of (or the?) most northern nebula features at Dec +81 deg. There are surprisingly not very many images of it on Astrobin, but it is VERY faint, so that is probably why. It was completely invisible for me on individual frames with the narrowband filter even after 12 minutes integration. Upon stacking, it was barely visible above the background, so my raw image was pretty noisy. After lots of Noise XTerminator, and some HOO color palette adjustment to help accentuate the colors, I have something which is at least okay. Comparing to a recent
IOTD image, I do see similar structure and can even see the very dim lower portion of the nebula that is almost invisible. For a very tough target, I'm fairly satisfied with the result - anything is a victory with this one. I am still trying to figure out why it is supposed to look like a Valentine's Rose though....
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