Best of 2017-18 video up on YouTube

Finally got my "Best of" video for last year done.  Check it out at:

Mikey's Best of 2017-18

 https://youtu.be/VRyTXA6UUis

Sh2-261 (Lower's Nebula) in RGBHa

One of the things we astro-photographers do when its cloudy is spend time doing the post processing of the images we've taken when the skies were clear.

Sh2-261 - February 9, 2019
GT102 f/5.6 with ASI1600mm Pro
15x30sec RGB; 25x300sec Ha

This object is Sh2-261, Sharpless 261, also known as the Lower's Nebula, is a faint region of doubly ionized hydrogen. Its apparent dimension is about 50 arcminutes in East-West direction and 30 arcminutes in North-South. So, it has an apparent size about twice the full Moon diameter. Of course the real size of the nebula is much larger! But we have no information about the distance of this hydrogen cloud, so we are not able to determine how large it is.

This image was taken with my 102mm APO refractor and ASI1600mm Pro camera using RGB filters and with Ha (the doubly ionized hydrogen wavelength).  Once I get another couple of clear nights I’m going to add in the Oiii (oxygen) and Sii (Sulphur) data to bring out the middle of the nebula.