It's been a long time since I had this much fun editing an astrophoto - excellent quality, no background alignment algorithms (DBE, GraXPert, etc. were not used).
My main goal was to capture the 'Little Iris' nebula (that's the name I found on the web), which in close-up resembles the Big Iris
I recently presented.
This is a rarely photographed part of the sky and I would like to show you the details.
I could not find a 'normal' name for it - according to SetiAstro and their script it is
DG 169 -- Reflection Nebula. On the other hand, LBN 408 can be found on the web, but this is more about the dark nebula next to it.
In close-up (resize 200%, so it's more cognitive than aesthetic) it looks like this:
The further into the forest we went, the more interesting it became, as this passage in particular caught my attention:
It looks
amazing to me - I was sure it was some kind of nebula, but to my surprise I've only found information that it's called:
EM* LkHA 120 -- Orion Variable. Wow! What is an 'Orion Variable'?
An Orion variable is a variable star which exhibits irregular and eruptive variations in its luminosity and is typically associated with diffuse nebulae. It is thought that these are young stars which will later become regular, non-variable stars on the zero-age main sequence. Brightness fluctuations can be as much as several magnitudes.Below the 'Little Iris' we have this 'curiosity'. Also, I only show for cognitive purposes, not aesthetics (resize 200%):
Here I found the information that this is the reflection nebula DG 170 (I didn't know that such a catalogue existed...), and right next to it - basically right in the middle - are two Herbig-Haro objects. Again, I have to admit that I didn't know what they were:
Herbig–Haro (HH) objects are bright patches of nebulosity associated with newborn stars. They are formed when narrow jets of partially ionised gas ejected by stars collide with nearby clouds of gas and dust at several hundred kilometers per second. Herbig–Haro objects are commonly found in star-forming regions, and several are often seen around a single star, aligned with its rotational axis. Most of them lie within about one parsec (3.26 light-years) of the source, although some have been observed several parsecs away. HH objects are transient phenomena that last around a few tens of thousands of years.Of course there is more, I encourage you to explore the photo
In the bottom right corner we have SH 2-121 (that's the red little nebula).
Raw calibrated, registered and stacked Master Lights FITS files are available here:
https://astrophotomarket.com/en/image-details/17/little-iris-lbn-408-ldn-978You can download, process the image and publish it as as your own astrophoto on Astrobin, Facebook and so on. Hope you like the picture and the description
As always, please feel free to comment and give feedback on the photo & processing.
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