Shark nebula

Image Description and Details : The Shark Nebula is a deepsky object I've tried to image a few times and never had much success. It is faint and challenging both in acquisition and processing. It requires a lot of moonless nights to really make the nebula region pop and to bring out the colours. This latest attempt to image it I employed different equipment than I usually use. For years I've used refractors to image the night sky but for the Shark nebula project I used a Starfield Optics 8 inch astrograph with a Starizona reducer/corrector which makes it an F3 light collecting beast! This combination worked very well on this target and I'm really happy with the final image. There is a lot to see in this image including LDN1235, VDB 149, VDB150 and galaxy PGC 67671. It's an interesting region of interstellar gas and dust sculpted by massive stars and their fast stellar winds and light energy.

Imaging location: Kitchener, Ontario, Canada

Equipment:
Starfield Optics 8in astrograph
Starizona Nexus reducer/corrector for F3
QHY268M cmos camera and filter wheel
Optolong LRGB filters
Skywatcher EQ6 mount
Skyshed Pier
Acquisition NINA 2.0
Processed in PixInsight

Exposure time: 17.5 hours (1min subs at high gain)

Copyright: Shawn Nielsen | VisibleDark