Sharpless SH2-264

[Ryderscope]

Also known as the Angel Fish nebula and the Lambda Orionis ring. A VERY large area of nebulosity in Orion located near Betelgeuse and Bellatrix. I started collecting data on this on at the beginning of December with the 100mm F2.8 EOS lens I acquired here on IIS (thanks Erik!).

The nebulosity is quite widespread and I only just managed to squeeze it into the field of view of the 100mm (aprx. 10d x 7d). Between 30 to 35 subs each for RGB at 300 seconds and 32 subs of Ha at 1200 seconds. Imaging camera is the QSI683 WS8. I felt the need to collect extra data on this one due to the faintness of the object and relatively low SNR.

Most images I see of this object show the Angel Fish swimming from left to right across the image. I prefer this orientation as I reckon that I can see an alien face looking out at me. Do you see it too??

Processing these widefield images is always a challenge due to the rich star field. I used one lot of star size reduction in PI and a little LHE to enhance the nebula. Still when I look at this now I feel that it might be a little too (dare I say this) "in your face". But then I look at it on another monitor and decide it is ok. Anyway, I shall put it out there for this learned audience to judge and see what happens.

Link to Astrobin image is here. (http://astrob.in/full/237720/0/)

p.s. apologies to those that don't like diffraction spikes but I could not seem to get an aperture mask to work properly on this lens (anyway, I don't mind them myself :D).
Enjoy
RW

[strongmanmike]

That's excellent Rodney, perhaps the stars do look a little processed and slightly muted (just a bit) I guess but man it's a faint bugger so some serious commitment has yielded a great result I recon :thumbsup:

Looks like a flounder to me though :face:

Mike

[billdan]

Great image there Rodney, one I've never seen before.

I agree it does look like an aliens face with 2 eyes and a mouth and star freckles on its nose.

However I think it should be renamed The Tassie Nebula, from a distance it looks like Tasmania.

Cheers
Bill

[Ryderscope]

Floundering in Tasmania - very good.
Thanks Mike and Bill.
:thanx:

[RickS]

I can see the alien too, Rodney, but I'd say it looks more like a Plaice than a Flounder :lol: Nice work. The only suggestion I have is to brighten it up just a little?

Cheers,
Rick.

[Ryderscope]

Thanks Rick. Agree on the brightening up a bit. I vacillated on the need or not to brighten but erred on the side of restraint. It looked ok on my monitor at home but at work I can see that it might be a tad on the dark side. I will try a brighter version later and see how it looks.

[LightningNZ]

Very cool Alien Head Rodney. I've never seen anyone take on just this object - it's always just part of a much wider field. I'd love to see those stars that form Orions head pop a little bit more (I guess that's the same suggestion as everyone above).

Cheers,
Cam

[cazza132]

Nice work Rodney! I think the diffraction spikes are fine. :thumbsup: Helps with the star colours I think. Maybe some lifting of your Ha data may benefit, but a very good image of an object that receives little direct attention from astrophotographers in general. :thumbsup:

[Ryderscope]

Thanks Cam and Troy for you comments.

I have had a go at lifting the image with a (very) small curves boost. I couldn't quite bring myself to push it any more but I think that I will be happy to go with this one.

Link to Rev 2 on Astrobin is here. (http://astrob.in/full/237720/C/)

RW

[E_ri_k]

Looks great Rodney! I'm glad the lens is working out for you :) first thing that came to mind was an alien head too, and then x-files haha.

I like the diffraction spikes too. I remember stopping the lens down a bit, maybe f.4 or higher? It controlled a bit of coma in the corners in images with rich star fields. Although the stars in your image look great.

I noticed you used your ccd camera. Did you know if you attach the lens to a DSLR you can lock the iris in the lens so it stays at what ever f stop you choose when you remove it from the camera body?

Erik

[Ryderscope]

Thanks, Erik. Yes - I did learn the trick for stopping down the lens from another post here in the IIS forum actually. Works really well. For this image I found that I needed to stop down the lens down to F7 before I was satisfied with the star shapes in the image. I am happy with the 100mm lens and it will make a good addition to my lens collection.

[Placidus]

Nice work Rodney.

I'm intrigued by the astrophysics. To my innocent and amateur mind, this seems to be about as pure an example of an unevolved HII region as one might hope to see. No shock fronts or cavities. No OIII emission to speak of. All indicating no really big hot stars have yet formed, and certainly no supernovae have gone off with a bang. All is quiet and pristine and peaceful ... so far.

Best,
Mike

[Ryderscope]

An interesting observation in that I did take one sub each of OIII and SII and concluded there was nothing to be had so did not take any more.



Yes, so maybe if we come back in a couple of million years things may be different.

Thanks Mike.