The Lion Nebula in Cepheus (Dan Mintz)

The Lion Nebula in Cepheus

The Lion Nebula is located approx 10,000 light years away, in the constellation Cepheus. This is a particularly faint object so you need a lot of integration time to bring out all the details. I shot this through Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Sulfur narrowband filters to effectively isolate the light that this nebula emits and block the light pollution in my area. I captured the data for this project over two nights, spending the entire first night with the Oxygen filter because it's the weaker of the signals, and the second night capturing Hydrogen and Sulfur.

For processing, I wanted to emphasize and draw the eye toward Sh2-132, the pillar at the center, which is suspected to be a region of active star formation. The data was clean and really fun to work with, and I'm amazed with how much detail came through.

15 hours total integration from Bortle 5
Ha: 60 x 300” at gain 200 and -10°C
Oiii: 84 x 300” at gain 200 and -10°C
Sii: 36 x 300” at gain 200 and -10°C

Stacked and processed in PixInsight

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Backyard
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Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

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