This is an image that my AB friend
@Chris Plonski introduced me to and I thought was just a very cool planetary image! During our back and forth convo's we had over on his image he explained to me about how faint the object was and he was not kidding! Thanks for the the info Chris!
This has been a month long data capture because of just life in general and clouds! I had a good run with the object back in September and collected 12hrs worth of data and I was quite pleased with the image for that little amount of data. I had originally planned on 30+ hours but after finally getting 24hrs with nothing but clouds in store for the next 1-2 weeks I decided to go ahead and process the data and plan to go after it again next year.
As Chris points out in his description
https://www.astrobin.com/qqsop3/B/ its one of the largest planetary nebula's known and is estimated to be 4500 light years away from earth. Its approximately 150,000 years old.
I think to date this is probably the faintest and most difficult planetary I've imaged, however it certainly was a fun as well as a learning experience processing this one. For me it was more difficult then my soap bubble nebula.
This is an HOO version with data shot with my Antlia 5nm filter for NB data. I used my L-Pro for my star color during a pretty fully lit moon. In APP I extracted the HA and OIII channels and after my normal processing of the data combine them using Channel Combination with the HOO mix. There was alot of structure within the nebula itself and I was carful not to over sharpen it. I really like the subtle way the interior of the nebula looks. I hope you like it too.
Just a side note, when working with the starless image I was suprized at how many galaxies were actully in the image.
Thanks for looking!
Dale
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