Sh2-173 (LBN 593) the Phantom of the Opera Nebula in Cassiopeia (Mark Wetzel)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Cassiopeia (Cas) · Contains: NGC 103 · The star 12 Cas

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Sh2-173 (LBN 593) the Phantom of the Opera Nebula in Cassiopeia

Powered byPixInsight

Sh2-173 (LBN 593) the Phantom of the Opera Nebula in Cassiopeia

Catalina, AZ, December 12-16, 2023

Sh2-173 (or LBN 593) is a faint H II emission region in the constellation Cassiopeia. It is about 8,800 light-years from Earth and resides in a relatively rich star field in the Perseus Arm of our galaxy. The shape and dark areas resemble the mask from the Phantom of the Opera. (Sky and Telescope 2022)

This was the first of three targets for several nights. The here was to blend the Hydrogen-alpha with the RGB data. After preprocessing with Russ Croman’s BlurXTerminator and NoiseXTerminator, I used StarXTerminator to remove the stars from a combined RGB image and the Ha master. The RGB stars were stretched and processed separately. I used a simple PixelMath combination to add Ha to the Red and Blue channels. I then extracted the luminance and sharpened it for combining into a LHaRGB image. This took many iterations to get the color and saturation to a satisfactory state.

Imaging details:

Stellarvue SVX102T refractor with 0.74x focal reducer (FL = 528mm, f/5.2)
ZWO large off-axis guider with a ZWO ASI 174MM mini guide camera
Losmandy G11 mount with Gemini 2
ZWO ASI 2600MM Pro cooled monochrome camera (-10C)
Chroma 36mm Hydrogen-alpha, Red, Green, and Blue filters
Equatorial camera rotation: 90 degrees

Software:   Sequence Generator Pro, ASTAP plate solving, PHD2 guiding,
   Losmandy Gemini ASCOM mount control and web client interface,
   SharpCap Pro for polar alignment with a Polemaster camera,
   PixInsight 1.8.9-2,
   Photoshop 2024

Hydrogen-a 10 min x 29 subframes (290 min), Gain 100, Offset 32, 1x1 binning
Red 2 min x 27 subframes (54 min), Gain 100, Offset 32, 1x1 binning
Green 2 min x 26 subframes (52 min), Gain 100, Offset 32, 1x1 binning
Blue 2 min x 27 subframes (54 min), Gain 100, Offset 32, 1x1 binning

Total integration time: 7.5 hours

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.

Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	8949747
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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Sh2-173 (LBN 593) the Phantom of the Opera Nebula in Cassiopeia

Sh2-173 (LBN 593) the Phantom of the Opera Nebula in Cassiopeia

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Sh2-173 (LBN 593) the Phantom of the Opera Nebula in Cassiopeia

Sh2-173 (LBN 593) the Phantom of the Opera Nebula in Cassiopeia

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