Sh2-101 The Tulip Nebula With Cygnus X-1 Bow Shock (very modestly resolved) (Jim Raskett)

Sh2-101 The Tulip Nebula With Cygnus X-1 Bow Shock (very modestly resolved)

From Wikipedia:
Sharpless 101 (Sh2-101) is a H II region emission nebula located in the constellation Cygnus. It is sometimes also called the Tulip Nebula because it appears to resemble the outline of a tulip when imaged photographically. It was catalogued by astronomer Stewart Sharpless in his 1959 catalog of nebulae. It lies at a distance of about 6,000 light-years (5.7×1016 km; 3.5×1016 mi) from Earth.

Sh2-101, at least in the field seen from Earth, is in close proximity to microquasar Cygnus X-1, site of one of the first suspected black holes. Cygnus X-1 is located about 15′ west of Sh2-101. The companion star of Cygnus X-1 is a spectral class O9.7 Iab supergiant with a mass of 21 solar masses and 20 times the radius of the Sun. The period of the binary system is 5.8 days and the pair is separated by 0.2 astronomical units. The black hole has a mass of 15 solar masses and a Schwarzschild radius of 45 km. A bowshock is created by a jet of energetic particles from the black hole as they interact with the interstellar medium. It can be seen as an arc at the top of the photo on the left.

Cygnus X-1 (abbreviated Cyg X-1) is a galactic X-ray source in the constellation Cygnus and was the first such source widely accepted to be a black hole. It was discovered in 1971 during a rocket flight and is one of the strongest X-ray sources detectable from Earth, producing a peak X-ray flux density of 2.3×10−23 W/(m2⋅Hz) (2.3×103 jansky). It remains among the most studied astronomical objects in its class. The compact object is now estimated to have a mass about 21.2 times the mass of the Sun and has been shown to be too small to be any known kind of normal star or other likely object besides a black hole. If so, the radius of its event horizon has 300 km "as upper bound to the linear dimension of the source region" of occasional X-ray bursts lasting only for about 1 ms.

Hi All,
I wasn’t going to go through all summer without imaging (like last year) due to poor skies.
I set up on Monday night even though the sky apps predicted clouds until after midnight.
Proved to be true. In fact clouds were on and off for two nights but I managed about 10 hours on the Tulip even though about 30% of the frames were under some cloud cover.
Tried processing in natural red Ha, but wasn’t impressed. Used Bill Blanshan’s SHO normalization and curves to create this image.
My main goal changed from the Tulip to the Cygnus X-1 bow shock after reading about it on the internet.
I only managed a glimpse of it in this image, but was happy with that.
Thanks a lot for looking!
Jim

Original
B
C
D
Final
E

B

Description: Added Cygnus X-1 Bow Shock Annotation

Uploaded: ...

C

Description: Some brightening and selective sharpening of the Tulip in Pixinsight with slight balance adjustment in Photoshop.
Slight improvement in the Cygnus X-1 bow shock.

Uploaded: ...

D

Description: A tad on the blue side of SHO!

Uploaded: ...

E

Description: New coloration basically from removing magenta.

Uploaded: ...

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	8349503
PixInsight job	8SC5HIMML9OZR948AHVDLWU2WEXARHFJ
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	19h59m18s.82
RA (top/left)	19h56m37s.61
RA (top/right)	19h56m32s.83
RA (bottom/right)	20h01m57s.99
RA (bottom/left)	20h02m07s.26

Dec (center)	+35°23′57″.2
Dec (top/left)	+35°57′58″.1
Dec (top/right)	+34°51′10″.9
Dec (bottom/right)	+34°49′38″.4
Dec (bottom/left)	+35°56′28″.7

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