Beware of the Squid! (Christian Koll)

Beware of the Squid!

The constellation of Cepheus is a true treasure trove for astrophotographers: Besides the well known Elephant Trunk Nebula IC1396 and the Iris Nebula NGC7023, another vast nebula - Sh 2-129 can be found. The latter is home to a shy creature: OU4 "The Squid" - a massive outflow of gas from a triple star system.

This image is actually a by-product of my still ongoing quest to capture a mosaic of the Spaghetti Nebula.
Since at this time of the year, Simeis 147 can only be captured after midnight, I needed an object for the first half of the night.
And the "Flying Bat Nebula" Sh 2-129 and the "Squid" OU4 were a perfect target!

This image was taken from Bortle 2 and 3 skies during several nights for a total of over 7 hours Ha and over 14 hours of OIII.
I know other astrophotographers have invested a lot more time to capture this, but I found the result to be very nice with what I got.

I also included the starless OIII image - I hope you like my result!

Original
Final
D

QHY Users Group
Fine Art Astrophotography
Imaged with N.I.N.A.
Skywatcher Esprit ED Super APO Triplet
Narrowband imaging
CMOS Imagers
The refractors!
Austria Astrophotography
QHYCCD 600M

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
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.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

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