IC 417 and NGC 1931 - The Spider and the Fly (SHORGB)

Working off my backlog of imaged deep space objects, I present the Spider and the Fly in narrowband and broadband combined.  Well, if you pay attention to the dates of acquisition it really wasn't part of my backlog :)

This image was a bear to process as there were some high clouds present while I captured the Oiii and Sii data.  This caused significant background noise in the image and I had to really push the noise reduction in my post-processing. Not too happy with the result, but here it is anyway.

The Spider and the Fly
Feb 27, 28 and Mar 3
GT102 and ASI2600mm Camera f/5.5 10 hours

Taken over three nights (Feb 27, 28 and Mar 3) for about 10 hours of total integration time. 

The Spider is about 10,000 light-years distant while the Fly is a bit closer to us at 7,000 light-years. They reside in the constellation Auriga.  Composed of clouds of gas and dust, this region is the site of new stellar birth.  The glowing nebula is caused by the excitation of the gas by clusters of massive, relatively newly formed, stars located near the centers of the nebulosity.  The large nebula on the right side of the image is the Spider and the small nebula is the Fly.

Full details at: https://www.astrobin.com/8y5xan/

Comet C/2021 O3 PANSTARRS - A Possible Bright Comet

C/2021 O3 (PanSTARRS) is an Oort cloud comet, discovered on 26 July 2021 by the Pan-STARRS sky survey. It will come to perihelion (closest approach to the sun) on 21 April 2022 at 0.287 AU (26.6 million miles) from the Sun. 

As far as calculations go right now it appears that it might reach apparent magnitude 5 by late April 2022, but will only be 15 degrees from the Sun, low in the western sky. Binoculars will be needed to see it in the bright dusk sky. C/2021 O3 will make its closest approach to Earth on 8 May 2022 at a distance of 0.60 AU (56 million miles). As a dynamically new comet from the Oort cloud there is a high risk that this comet may disintegrate after passing perihelion as comet ISON did back in November 2013. 

Gideon van Buitenen has a web page with some really detailed information (as well as a great animated orbit plot) of C/2021 O3. Worth a look. I'll be keeping a close account of this comet in the weeks to come. Stay tuned.