NGC 2174 and HD 42088 (Jan. 2018)

NGC 2174 is a bright emission nebula surrounding HD42088, a mag 7.55, O-type star in northern Orion.  Most large emission nebulae have an O-type star near their centers.  The orange star at lower left is HD252208, a type K star.  The brighter star at the top is also a type K.

This is a full spectrum image tempered by the Astronomik CLS light pollution filter.  The camera was the SXVF-H9C.  The image is a stack of 18x9' frames.

The telescope for this image is new, an 8" Newtonian reflector with parts gathered from various suppliers.  I am not finished tweaking the telescope yet, but I like this image.  I also like the speed of this scope.  Whereas my classical Cassegrain images (with reducer) at f/8.1, this scope images (with coma corrector) at f/4.9.

NGC 2174, the Monkey Head Nebula (1-2011)

I was able to take OIII subs this week. Combined with the Ha and mapped to more or less natural color, the nebula now looks like this. The OIII subs were 24x7' taken with the Atik 16 through the 120mm + WO 0.8x II ff/fr = f/4 achromat and Astronomik Ha [+NII] and OIII filters. Here is the OIII data: