Never thought I would get this image, but thanks to re-engineering and raising the pier I can see lower at the horizon. I did have to trim an Olive tree.

This is the absolute minimal number of exposures and a lot of processing.

I want to thank Gary Lopez for getting J-P Metsalvino to give an inspirational talk today. He explained that his work is basically done in a city.... so I have no excuses for the limits of narrow band imaging in a city either.

Gary's Post and Links

From GalaxyMap:

This is NGC 6334, the Cat's Paw nebula. This complex of HII regions contains one larger bubble (Gum 63) adjacent to three smaller bubbles (Gum 61, Gum 62 and Gum 64b) in addition to several other partially obscured nebulae and at least eleven major infrared sources that are probably mostly cooler B stars.

It lies at the same distance as NGC 6357, the War and Peace nebula, and is separated from it by a dark cloud. Both are near the Sco OB4 association in the Sagittarius arm.

GENERAL NOTE ON SHARPLESS2 OBJECTS>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I have been on a project for several years now to image all the Sharpless2 Objects that I can see from my location near San Francisco. I chose these because they are visible in light polluted areas. These objects generally represent left over Hydrogen along the edge of the Milky Way that has gotten molded into interesting shapes.

There are 313 Sh2 objects.

As of the date when this image was posted:

I had imaged 255 (81%).

There are 12 too diffuse/large to image with my set up (Sh2 111, 117, 122, 131, 132, 145, 178, 218, 221, 230, 268 and 310).

There are 5 that are never above 14 DEG elevation at my site and are too low for my 15 DEG min due South (Sh2 2-6).

This leaves me 41 potentially still do-able and most are in Expert Scheduler waiting for them to pass by.

The first one was taken on December 23, 2013.

Many were taken with my old Tak 180 ED, which had a wide field of view, but was replaced with my Stellarvue 130, which is more narrow field. I have also taken two very wide field HA images with my Nikon D800 and a 50mm lens.

This is my collection:

Sharpless2

Wide-Angle Hydrogen Alpha Nikon Image Sh2 79-171

Please note there is also a Sharpless2 Group with now more than 1500 examples.

Sharpless2 Group

Other useful links include:

Gary Imm's Collection

GalaxyMap's Collection

The Sharpless Catalog

The MDW H-alpha Sky Survey

Reiner Vogel's detailed observing catalog

Hope you enjoy these obscure but interesting objects...