NGC 2467 (
big one here) is a 7 mag emission nebula and open cluster in Puppis. The thumbnail labels some important discoveries:
The nebula is Snoopy on vacation, heading for the beach. He is sitting on his rocket ship. The nose cone of the rocket is toward top left, and the four blue ion drives are at bottom right. If you cannot see Snoopy, there is no hope, but some of the details (his bathing cap, beach ball (filled with stars), his coat-hanger for his clothes, his very retro dangly bow tie, are all clearly labelled in the thumb.
New to us is the extent of the smoke (toward top right), and poignantly, his pet lamb which is tucked under his arm.
20 inch PlaneWave CDK. FLI PL16803. Ha: yellow, 9 hrs. OIII: blue, 6 hrs. 0.55 sec arc/pixel, South up.
We are still struggling with some minor technical details after a two-year-long complete rebuild of all the electronics, including 5 Arduinos to control all the motors, and complete rewrite of all the software in C# to be more future-proof. We seem to have resolved a nasty balance-and-stiction issue which was producing double stars, by biasing the weight toward the south, but we're still having some deep software issues with east-west guiding.
Progress has been glacial since Spring, due to hideous NSW bush fires, dust storms, gales, heat waves, and now perpetual cloud. This image took four nights over three months to acquire. We are delighted to have gotten anything at all.
New to us is the extent of the "smoke" (mostly H-alpha) which in our previous image was out of field. If the clouds would go away, we'd like to extend the image half a panel to the right.
This image is (controversially) in HHO (H-alpha to yellow, OIII to blue) not just for a happy sand-and-surf look, but because we both loathe the butcher's apron, blood-and-guts cryovac kangaroo liver surgery-gone-wrong HOO palate.
We'd like to add SII, for a more traditional SHO palate. Fat chance this summer.
Best,
Mike and Trish