Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Cygnus (Cyg)
SH2-101 The Tulip Nebula, niteman1946
SH2-101 The Tulip Nebula
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SH2-101 The Tulip Nebula

SH2-101 The Tulip Nebula, niteman1946
SH2-101 The Tulip Nebula
Powered byPixInsight

SH2-101 The Tulip Nebula

Equipment

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Acquisition details

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Description

Sharpless 101 (Sh2-101) is a H II region emission nebula located in the constellation Cygnus. It is sometimes called the Tulip Nebula because it appears to resemble the outline of a tulip when imaged photographically. It was catalogued by astronomer Stewart Sharpless in his 1959 catalog of nebulae. It lies at a distance of about 6,000 light-years (3.5e16 mi) from Earth with an apparent magnitude of 9.0.

Sh2-101, at least in the field seen from earth, is in close proximity to microquasar Cygnus X-1, site of one of the first suspected black holes. Cygnus X-1 is the bright star near the bottom right corner of the image presented here.[Source: Wikipedia]

The Tulip Nebula occupies an area of 16 x 9 arc minutes of apparent sky and has a linear diameter of about 70 light years.  The HII region is called the Tulip Nebula because its shape resembles the form of a tulip and it has a reddish glow in wide band long exposure photographs.
The emission from the Tulip Nebula is powered by ultraviolet radiation of the hot young star HD 227018. The O6.5III class star belongs to the Cygnus OB3 association and has a visual magnitude of 9.02. In images, it can be seen near the nebula’s center.

The Tulip Nebula can be seen about 2 degrees southwest of the Crescent Nebula (NGC 6888). Both objects can be found along an imaginary line drawn from Sadr, the central star of the Northern Cross, to Albireo, the contrasting binary star that marks the celestial Swan’s beak. The nebulae reside in the Orion Arm of our galaxy, in a rich Milky Way field full of interesting stars and deep sky objects. [Source: Constellation Guide].

CAPTURE Information:
The image was captured with the iOptron CEM120 mount , the venerable Meade 12"LX200 SCT, and my QHY294m Pro mono at F7.16 (2182mm FL).

IMAGE information -- 2022
This is a combination of Ha and R, G and B.
Ha :    30 subs (2.50 hrs.) on Sep 26th.
RED :  25 subs (2.08 hrs.) on Sep 15th and 17th.
GRN : 28 subs (2.33 hrs.) on Sep 16th and 17th.
BLU :  28 subs (2.33 hrs.) on Sep 16th and 17th.
All exposures were at 5 minutes (300s) each, 1x1 bin, -10C, Gain 1600 and Offset 56.

Color was created using the Red, Green and Blue filters.  These images were individually integrated and then combined into a color image.  Luminance was generated using only subs from the Ha filter.  This was then fully processed and combined with the RGB image for full definition.
Processing was done with PixInsight, following (for the most part) kayronjm's tutorial of Feb. 24th from several years back.

COMMENTS:
This is the second effort with this target. The first was in 2021 with the Atik 383L+mono CCD.  That approach used the Ha, OIII and SII narrow band filters and yielded a more greenish/gold image somewhat inline with the Hubble palette.
I continue to image with my new QHY294m Pro mono cmos camera, and settled on the “gain” and “offset”  settings (1600 and 56 respectively), and the use of Lights, Darks, Flats and Flat Darks for processing.

My CEM120 iOptron mount has been back to the Massachusetts service center twice to correct for problematic tracking.  Still not there and I had to remove 8 of 38 subs due to non-correctable RA excursions.  I’ve contacted the manufacturer (again) and await their response.

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SH2-101 The Tulip Nebula, niteman1946