Sharpless 2-245 LRGB/Ha

[Ryderscope]

Sh2-245 is a very large Ha region that forms part of the Orion-Eridanus super bubble. Imaged here with my ASI6200 camera and Canon EF200mm lens. As it is quite faint, I went the extra mile and captured a little over 50 hours of data with a view to helping with signal to noise ratio in post processing. Most of the data captured was in Ha and SII. This posting is for the LRGB/Ha version. I will publish the narrowband version separately.

Link here to Astrobin post. (https://app.astrobin.com/i/rgml2d)
Full write up and acquisition details on Astrobin

Clear skies,
Rodney

[Startrek]

Rodney,
Wow ! you’ve poured some serious hours into this project which has paid off with a beautiful wide field image of this region. Colour is superb and stars are pinpoint perfect.
Well done for hard work and dedication alone !!

Martin

[strongmanmike]

Great looking shot Rodney, something new, I like it and with the usual high quality of that lens shinning through, great job :thumbsup:

I assume it took you more than the four nights indicated on AstroBin..? My longest ever exposure is 52.5hrs and that took me ten nights to collect over April-June :scared:

Mike

[gregbradley]

That's a beauty Rodney. Stars look wonderful.
That's a hell of a lens eh?

Great persistence.

Greg.

[Paul Haese]

That is an expansive view of the target. Loads of faint detail there.

[Ryderscope]

Thanks for comments everyone.

You are correct Mike in that the Astrobin site only allows the selection of one date per filter so I tend to just put in the date of the most recent frame downloaded. The actual elapsed time in this case was from September 2024 through to January 2025 (I was surprised too when I looked at this). I do try to get onto new objects early on in their apparition to try and make sure to get enough data before the season for the object ends, even if it means starting the acquisition project at 1am.

Thanks for the feedback on the lens Greg. This lens has been kind to me with the ASI6200 camera though it did take some time and effort to dial in the tilt adjustment. I step down the lens to about f5 as well to alleviate aberrations around the edge of the field.

[strongmanmike]

Good idea :thumbsup:...I'm still mostly a - pick an object that is at 30deg elevation at astro twilight, and image it all night, for as many nights as possible before boredom sets in - kinda guy :P

Mike

[CoolhandJo]

Great image Rodney. Love the contrast in the different nebulae

[Ryderscope]

Thanks Paul.

[PRejto]

Brilliant work! You make getting a photo to look natural seem easy which is indeed virtuosic by definition. Bravo!

[Ryderscope]

Many thanks Peter.