NGC6914: In the heart of the Swan

[Howard Trottier]

CITSO-NGC6914-Downsampled4.jpg

Hi:

This is the first image that I acquired using ACP: it is NGC6914, a tangle of nebulae and stars in the heart of Cygnus that I shot between July 24 and August 25. A brilliant blanket of red emission nebulae encompasses an intricate web of reflection nebulae of varying shades of blue, with the field shot through by stars of many vivid colours. Towards the middle of the frame the blue nebula fades gradually in colour and intensity, giving way to very dark clouds in an apparent transition that seems almost unique in the sky!


The image is the result of 15 hours of exposure in a PlaneWave Instruments CDK17, using an Apogee U16M/FW50 camera/filter wheel equipped with Astrodon filters (including 3-nm narrobands), riding atop a Paramount ME, guided by a Starlight Xpress Lodestar camera through an Astrodon MOAG. The gear is housed in my roll-off roof Cabin in the Sky Observatory, which is located under the deep, dark, and dry skies of the south Okanagan region of British Columbia. Exposures were: 200 minutes in luminance (unbinned); 170 mins in narrowband Ha (unbinned); and 130 mins red, 140 mins green, and 260 mins blue (all colours binned 2x2). Image capture was done with ACP controlling TheSkyX, MaxIm DL, and Focusmax. Processing was done with PixInsight and CCDInspector.


The image above is downsampled X4 from the (slightly cropped) original 16 Megapixel version.


Thanks for looking!
Howard.