SH2-171 Teddy Bear Nebula

 An unfinished project, no doubt something bigger & brighter caught my attention and this project was left on the shelf. The teddy Bear Nebula or SH2-171 is an HII emission nebula and star forming region approx 3000 light years away in the constellation of Cepheus. A very young cluster of stars designated Berkeley 59 located just off centre in the 2 o'clock position is only a few million years old and is the primary source for the nebula. Stellar winds have shaped and eroded columns & pillars of gas to create this wonderful region. The brightest almost central star in the image is not associated with the nebula at 317 light years away. 

As always this image was captured with the ED100 and the ASI 294 Mc Pro with 10 x 5 minute sub exposures controlled by the ASI Air pro micro computer

A night of a blue moon.

Typically three clear nights lead up to a full moon. Less of a concern now for us deep sky enthusiasts especially with the Optolong L-Enhance dual band filter. 

Not a perfect solution by any standards but certainly allows us colour CMOS camera users greater object choice when in light polluted or moonlit skies. I am certainly happy with it anyway. Another chance also to test the Autofocus routine on the ASIAIR pro and the EAF. 

I started the evening with a few technical difficulties. I needed to reload the software from a corrupt disk back onto the AIR, possibly due to moisture build up in the observatory. A new thermostatically controlled heater will hopefully cure the problem. It certainly did for the last obsy. The aim of the evening was to test everything worked again rather than any serious imaging run. So I rotated the dome away from the moon and targeted IC1396  The Elephants trunk nebula one of my first targets with the ZWO ASI294MC pro and initiated the auto focus routine. I have to say it worked flawlessly so much better focus than just with a bhatinov mask. I set it to adjust every 30 minutes for the 2 hours of data . Processed also in a slightly different way but just look at the focus difference. I thought I was happy with the older image (2nd one)

Pleiades

A star cluster known to every civilisation and buried within the folklore across every culture on the planet, The Pleiades or the seven sisters is probably the most recognisable of all the 88 constellations. I think also the best example of a reflection nebula. Containing over a thousand members mostly of hot young stars. Slowly moving through space through an unrelated dust cloud, the dust is illuminated by light and the energy of the stars.

I love the way the dust is sculpted in front of the stars Maia & Merope.

Just under two hours of exposure time captured in 3 minute exposures using the ZWO ASI294MC pro, Calibrated with Flats, Darks and Dark Flats The first real test too using the new auto focus routine with the ZWO EAF focuser. All I can say is incredible, A quick and simple procedure that takes 2-3 minutes and can be incorporated into the autorun of a sequence. You can add a change to focus via temp difference or time. A Video to follow.