SH2-174 Valentine Rose - planetary nebula

[Andy Nowlen]

Here is my version of the Valentine Rose nebula. It is the best I can do after 22 hours of integration. The big challenge is that this target in Cepheus is only magnitude 14.8 - very dim. It is 15x13 arc minutes. Guiding was VERY difficult apparently because this target is very far 'north' at RA 23 48 04.62 and DEC +81 04 10.2. This effort required constant babysitting to maintain decent polar alignment and decent guiding.

My captures were gathered in 11 sessions from August 29 - September 27.
Scope - ES ED102mm @ 709
Filter - optolong l-extreme-most exposures
Filter - optolong uvir-a few exposures
Camera - Asi533mcp
Mount - ioptron CEM40EC
AsiAir Pro controller
Astropixel processor
Pixinsight
Photoshop

 

[JimFox]

Wow! This looks so awesome! This is a really dim object! You sure did a great with this, and I totally get having to babysit the guiding, I have experience that too.

 

[Ben Egbert]

Awesome image.

 

[AlanLichty]

Beautiful result.

 

[CRTAstro]

Great job !

 

[Mike Lewis]

Amazing work - I am sure that was not easy at such a high declination. Was not familiar with this target - will have to go research it, thanks for posting!

ML