AAPOD2 Image Archives
The Bear Claw Nebula
HDW-2 - The Bear Claw Nebula - Planetary Nebula in Cassiopeia
PlaneWave CDK-20 20" f/7.7 Astrograph
PlaneWave L-500 Mount
QHY600M CMOS Camera
Total exposure: HaOiiiLRGB 16.8 hours
Sierra Remote Observatories
August 2022
Data acquisition by Eric Coles
Image processing by Bob Fera
The Bear Claw is a large, faint planetary nebula that's officially, and poetically, known as Hartl-Dengl-Weinberger 2. (It's also known as Sh2-200, from the Sharpless catalog of emission nebulae.) Discovered in 1983, it wasn't determined to be a planetary nebula until 2017. This image is a composite taken through narrowband Hydrogen-Alpha (red) and Oxygen-III (teal) filters along with standard broadband RGB filters for the stars. The nebula is extremely faint, especially in H-alpha, and took lots of post-processing to bring out. As I normally do, I processed the narrowband data to approximate "true" color as best as I could.
Copyright: Bob Fera
NGC 6914 - Reflection Nebula in Cygnus
image Descriptions
PlaneWave CDK-20 20" f/7.7 Astrograph
PlaneWave L-500 Mount
QHY600M CMOS Camera
Total exposure: HaLRGB 16.1 hours
Sierra Remote Observatories
June 2022
Data acquisition by Eric Coles
Image processing by Bob Fera
NGC 6914 is the blue reflection nebula in the center of this field that's otherwise filled with dust and red emission from glowing Hydrogen gas.
Copyright: Bob Fera
NGC 6559
image Details:
PlaneWave CDK-20 20" f/7.7 Astrograph
PlaneWave L-500 Mount
QHY600M CMOS Camera
Total exposure: HaLRGB 11.9 hours
Sierra Remote Observatories
June 2022
Data acquisition by Eric Coles
Image processing by Bob Fera
This image presented some interesting processing challenges, but I'm pretty happy with how it came out. Big shout-out to Russ Croman and his Photoshop plugins, which were invaluable to getting this one done!
Copyright: Bob Fera
van den Bergh 141
The Ghost Nebula - Reflection Nebula in Cepheus
PlaneWave CDK-20 20" f/7.7 Astrograph
PlaneWave L-500 Mount
QHY600M CMOS Camera
Total exposure: LRGB 9.25 hours
Sierra Remote Observatories
June 2022
Data acquisition by Eric Coles
Image processing by Bob Fera
vdB141 is an eerie-looking cloud of dust and gas that's reflecting the light of nearby stars.
Copyright: Bob Fera