Bipolar Nebula NGC 6164
02-Jul-2019
4200 light years distant, NGC 6164 is a bipolar emission nebula was created by a massive O-type star, 40 times as larger than the Sun.
This long exposure, narrow-band image data, shows hydrogen (H-α) gas in red and oxygen (O-III) in blue. The stars appear as cyan due to the differing exposure lengths of H-α and O-III.
The inner nebula spans 4 light years comprised of mostly hydrogen, while the faint outer halo, shed earlier in the stars life, is predominately oxygen-III.
Image:
- 81x 300s 6nm H-α
- 90x 600s 6nm O-III
Total integration 21 hours, 45 minutes.
Hardware:
- Celestron 11" EdgeHD
- Celestron EdgeHD 0.7x focal reducer
- Skywatcher EQ8 Pro mount
- QSI 683-ws8 Camera @ -15°C
- Astronomik 6nm narrowband filters
- Starlight Xpress Lodestar X2 Autoguider
- Starlight Xpress Active Optics
- Innovations Foresight On Axis Guider
- Starlight Instruments Focus Boss II
Location:
- Imaged on 5 nights between 23rd May and 29th May 2019.
- Orange zone in Brisbane, Australia. (Bortle 7)
Software:
- Planning & camera alignment with Aladin 10
- Captured with TheSkyX Professional
- Guiding with PHD2
- FocusLock live focusing
- PixInsight: Calibrate, align, stack, deconvolution, pixelmath HOO combination, histogram stretch, curves, HDR multiscale transform, local histogram equalization.
- Photoshop CC: High pass filter.