VDB4 and the Sailboat Cluster | A Reflecting Dark Nebula (Kevin Morefield)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Cassiopeia (Cas) · Contains: NGC 225 · VdB4

Image of the day 08/11/2020

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VDB4 and the Sailboat Cluster | A Reflecting Dark Nebula

Image of the day 08/11/2020

Powered byPixInsight

VDB4 and the Sailboat Cluster | A Reflecting Dark Nebula

The open cluster NGC 225, known as the sailboat, appears just above the dark nebula VDB4. Not much is out there on these two, either photographically or descriptively. It appears that the Cluster is in front of the nebula as the dust is reflecting the blue light of the young stars.

It appears to me that the is significant gas surrounding the stars in the cluster as well. The area around the stars seems to be glowing a bit and brighter than the sky background further away. This gives the image a soft look which I retained. Attempts to add contrast or bring up the black level obliterated the dark nebula below the cluster so I assumed this soft glow is real.

I believe this to be the sharpest data I've captured to date. Even after star alignment and the resample the median FWHM was below 2.0"and the Luminance median around 1.8". Sharpness that is completely wasted on this sort of target!

CCDStack for Calibration, deconvolution, and stretching.

Pixinsight for Cosmetic correction, DBE, Star Alignment, and Image integration

Topaz 5.1 for noise reduction

Photoshop for Curves, Color and Saturation adjustments

QHY Users Group

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	3723939
PixInsight job	5YZ4GF0JDN24BVLEYYDI0KX4R1Z53G9S
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	00h43m33s.923
RA (top/left)	00h43m47s.690
RA (top/right)	00h46m03s.561
RA (bottom/right)	00h43m20s.554
RA (bottom/left)	00h41m04s.640

Dec (center)	+61°52′55″.63
Dec (top/left)	+61°35′21″.11
Dec (top/right)	+61°53′34″.67
Dec (bottom/right)	+62°10′30″.33
Dec (bottom/left)	+61°52′10″.35

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Image of the day 08/11/2020

VDB4 and the Sailboat Cluster | A Reflecting Dark Nebula

Image of the day 08/11/2020

VDB4 and the Sailboat Cluster | A Reflecting Dark Nebula

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Image of the day 08/11/2020

VDB4 and the Sailboat Cluster | A Reflecting Dark Nebula

Image of the day 08/11/2020

VDB4 and the Sailboat Cluster | A Reflecting Dark Nebula

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