Imaging telescopes or lenses: William Optics FLT 132 Triplet APO f/7
Imaging cameras: ZWO ASI1600MM Cooled PRO
Mounts: Orion Atlas EQ-G
Guiding telescopes or lenses: Orion 50mm Guide Scope with helical focusing
Guiding cameras: Lacerta M-Gen II Autoguider
Focal reducers: William Optics Flattener 68III
Software: Adobe Lightroom CC · Photoshop CC · Main Sequence Software Sequence Generator Pro, v3.0 · Pleaides PixInsight Core 1.8
Filters: Astrodon OIII 3nm-31mm · Astrodon Ha 3nm-31mm
Dates:Dec. 22, 2020 , Jan. 6, 2021 , Feb. 5, 2021 , Feb. 10, 2021 , Feb. 21, 2021
Frames:
Astrodon Ha 3nm-31mm: 110x180" (gain: 200.00) -15C bin 1x1
Astrodon OIII 3nm-31mm: 148x180" (gain: 200.00) -15C bin 1x1
Integration: 12.9 hours
Darks: ~30
Bias: ~50
Avg. Moon age: 18.04 days
Avg. Moon phase: 42.65%
Bortle Dark-Sky Scale: 4.00
Astrometry.net job: 4254027
RA center: 7h 18' 30"
DEC center: -13° 12' 48"
Pixel scale: 0.863 arcsec/pixel
Orientation: -120.189 degrees
Field radius: 0.418 degrees
Resolution: 2102x2780
Locations: Monterey Pines Observatory, Monterey, California, United States
Data source: Backyard
About 12,000 light years away, in the constellation Canis Major, is an emission nebula popularly known as Thor’s Helmet. The center of the nebula is roughly spherical, with extending filamentous structures of gas and dust that may have been the result of interaction with a nearby molecular cloud. In the middle of the object is the Wolf-Raynet star, WR7, a very hot star that may be nearing supernova.
It was a slog to gather enough data to make this image. Frequent overcast, fog, and poor seeing, coupled with this object’s location low on the horizon, resulted in many short (2-3 hours) unproductive data gathering sessions. All together I was only able to collected about 30 hours of data over a two month stretch. Of those data, I used about 13 hours (with HFR <3.0) for color mapping, and 8.4 hours of better quality data (HFR <2.6) to create a master luminance. Version F is an HOO rendition where I used a color palette that better reveals the gradients in OIII and Ha mixtures. The second rendition, Version B, use a more traditional HOO color palette.
Description: Traditional HOO color palette
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Description: Bit of tweaking of star color
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Description: Yet another star tweak.
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Description: Adjusted the stretch to improve contrast and color density
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Description: Yet another tweak of the star color (perceptible to absolutely nobody but me).
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