Sh2-129 + Ou4 (The Flying Bat and The Giant Squid) (José Manuel López Arlandis)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Cepheus (Cep)

Sh2-129 + Ou4 (The Flying Bat and The Giant Squid), José Manuel López Arlandis

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Sh2-129 + Ou4 (The Flying Bat and The Giant Squid)

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Sh2-129 + Ou4 (The Flying Bat and The Giant Squid)

Sh2-129, in Cepheus, is often named the Flying Bat Nebula. It is fainter and less attractive than its neighbor IC 1396, the Elephant Trunk Nebula. Sh2-129 is an irregular, uniformly reddish emission nebula in HII. It is large, occupying about 2.4º in diameter. In 2011, the Swiss-French amateur astrophotographer Nicolas Outters discovered a weak OIII signal inside. It was the fourth of his discoveries, and he named it Ou4 or giant squid nebula. It has the appearance of a bipolar planetary nebula, but its origin is still unclear. It seems that it is located inside Sh2-129 and moves with it, and that its OIII flow starts from a triple star system located in the center of the squid, and called HR8119. The image is very striking, and the challenge of capturing it attracts the interest of many astrophotographers. I set myself this challenge in a simple way: to spend many hours with a QHY268C camera, an L-Ultimate filter and an EDPH61 tube (275mm, f/4.5). I got 34 hours, and I still fell short. I needed 15 nights in October (between the 4th and 29th.), due to some technical problems and a variable sky. The processing was difficult, with a weak signal and trying to clearly differentiate the two objects against the background of stars. I chose to separate the color channels almost from the beginning of the processing, working with them separately and performing the color fusion just before incorporating the RGB stars and putting the finishing touches.

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Astrometry.net job	8900202
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Sh2-129 + Ou4 (The Flying Bat and The Giant Squid)

Sh2-129 + Ou4 (The Flying Bat and The Giant Squid)

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Sh2-129 + Ou4 (The Flying Bat and The Giant Squid)

Sh2-129 + Ou4 (The Flying Bat and The Giant Squid)

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