Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Cassiopeia (Cas)  ·  Contains:  HD224403  ·  HD224669  ·  HD224892  ·  LBN 576
Abell 85 / CTB1 / LBN 576 - (CAS) The Popped Balloon / Onion - A faint leftover shell of balloon filaments floating in space, Wouter Cazaux
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Abell 85 / CTB1 / LBN 576 - (CAS) The Popped Balloon / Onion - A faint leftover shell of balloon filaments floating in space

Revision title: Abell85 - Popped Balloon - Full ReProcess

Abell 85 / CTB1 / LBN 576 - (CAS) The Popped Balloon / Onion - A faint leftover shell of balloon filaments floating in space, Wouter Cazaux
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Abell 85 / CTB1 / LBN 576 - (CAS) The Popped Balloon / Onion - A faint leftover shell of balloon filaments floating in space

Revision title: Abell85 - Popped Balloon - Full ReProcess

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Description

Abell 85 / CTB1 / LBN 576 - (CAS) The Popped Balloon / Onion - A faint leftover shell of balloon filaments floating in space - 21 hours of HO with RGB stars

Just exactly a year ago, I had imaged this object together with the small rosetta, framing both nicely together (see my previous post), as Abell 85 / CTB1 is sometimes overlooked as it is very faint.

This year I wanted to have a closer look to pop this balloon (Abell 85) with my TS140 scope. This ended up being my summer project with longer integration times, as this is a very faint object. A total of 21 hours, mainly Ha and Oiii, with a separate capture of 2 hours RGB specifically for the stars

The shell is mainly Ha, with some faint Oiii fringes, the remnant of a star that went supernova roughly 10.000 years ago, located some 9784 light years away from us, spanning a diameter of 98 lightyears. In the night sky, it is roughly the size of the full moon.

TS140, ASI2600MM, CEM70
HO 160x 16x 300s + HO 15x 10x 600s = 18:50 hrs
RGB stars 6x 21x 18x 180s = 2:15 hrs
Total 21:05 hrs
20220724-20220905
PixInsight

This object needs a lot of time. I’ve seen images going up to 45 hours of integration time. Although I would’ve loved to reach that quality, it is a trade-off between having enough summer clear skies and the desire to capture a bit of diversity from the sky. I’ve settled on 21 hours for now, a bit faint on the Oiii, happy with the faint details in the Ha (but maybe there is still more to be found), not sure if there is any Sii in the neighbourhood. 2 hours of RGB on the stars seems ok, separate processing, although I’m wondering if I should have more saturated colours in the stars

Spending 7 nights on the same object has been a bit frustrating, but it’s the price for patience and dedication of getting longer integration times. Just hoping that I managed to squeeze every photon out of the data that was to be found and that my processing has done justice to this long wait . Any constructive guidance is welcome …

Clear Skies everybody! 🤩✨🔭

Follow me @astrowaut

Comments

Revisions

  • Abell 85 / CTB1 / LBN 576 - (CAS) The Popped Balloon / Onion - A faint leftover shell of balloon filaments floating in space, Wouter Cazaux
    Original
  • Abell 85 / CTB1 / LBN 576 - (CAS) The Popped Balloon / Onion - A faint leftover shell of balloon filaments floating in space, Wouter Cazaux
    B
  • Final
    Abell 85 / CTB1 / LBN 576 - (CAS) The Popped Balloon / Onion - A faint leftover shell of balloon filaments floating in space, Wouter Cazaux
    C

B

Title: StarLess Version

Description: For background information purposes, I've uploaded the starless version as a revision

Uploaded: ...

C

Title: Abell85 - Popped Balloon - Full ReProcess

Description: The original data, no changes, captured with the TS140 scope.
Full re-process of the data, using new skills, new techniques. I felt that there was much more in the data, compared to what I initially managed to bring with my first processing. The popped balloon as HHOO, stars with RGB data. Much more detail in the filaments. The Oiii shell is nicely visible. The background nebulosity stands out much more
The processed image is 64bit, comforted into 16bit TIF for upload onto astrobin. Somehow that makes the hues much 'stronger/harder'

TS140, ASI2600MM, CEM70
HO 160x 16x 300s + HO 15x 10x 600s = 18:50 hrs
RGB stars 6x 21x 18x 180s = 2:15 hrs
Total 21:05 hrs
20220724-20220905
PixInsight, BXT, NXT, StarXT

Happy to hear your thoughts ...

Uploaded: ...

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Abell 85 / CTB1 / LBN 576 - (CAS) The Popped Balloon / Onion - A faint leftover shell of balloon filaments floating in space, Wouter Cazaux