20210922 - Sh2-155 CEP The Cave  Nebula - A shelter for all the bats, ghosts and phantoms out there …

What’s in the picture(s)
Sh2-155 CEP The Cave Nebula - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sh2-155
Quote “Sh2-155 (also designated Caldwell 9, Sharpless 155 or S155) is a diffuse nebula in the constellation Cepheus, within a larger nebula complex containing emission, reflection, and dark nebulosity. It is widely known as the Cave Nebula. It is an ionized H II region with ongoing star formation activity, at an estimated distance of 725 parsecs (2400 light-years) from Earth.”

What was the experience
Although I now have my TS94 and TS140 as main scopes, I still have my very coveted RedCat imaging in the background. Similar to how I started a couple of months ago, the RedCat is running on the SkyGuider Pro. Setting this up and polar aligning remains a good practice to continue to have this very “hands-on” experience without the thrills of an automated mount with GoTo and Meridian Flip functionality.
While the others scopes are “programmed” to capture multiple objects during a session, the RedCat remains dedicated to a single DSO each session. 
Fond of the Sharpless-catalogue, this time Sh2-155, the Cave Nebula, was in focus. 
Imaging with the L-Extreme, this generally means a predominately red image, because of the general abundance of Ha. However, sharpening the processing skills, this one received the ‘fake Hubble Palette’ treatment again.
Happy that my RedCat continues to produce these results … 🤩

How it was done
Scope: WO RedCat 51
Mount: iOptron SkyGuider Pro
Camera: ASI183MC PRO
Filter: Optolong L-Extreme
Guiding: ASIAIR Pro, ZWO30F4, ASI120MM
Resolution: 1,98”/pixel, FoV 218’
Moon: 96%(-), Bortle 5/6 SQM 19.60
Photons:  Gain 125, cooling -10, 300s, 80x (o/w 75 processed, a good night)
Darks 51x
Processing: PixInsight (Mac) - ‘fake’ Hubble palette 

What have I learned from this
Running the RedCat with the SkyGuider Pro is great for keeping the mount-skills sharp, polar alignment, pointing Dec and RA through Plate Solving, getting the right orientation, focusing … all manually
With the SkyGuider running all night, at 300s, this means enough and clean data to process the image, without having the star-halos caused by the L-Extreme on longer exposures
Happy with the result …. 🤩

Clear Skies everybody! 🤩✨🔭

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