ic 443, the jelly fish nebula 11 hours 20 minutes
click image for 50% full size

 

the jellyfish is a supernova remnant, a cloud of hydrogen (mostly) gas expanding away from one of those super explosions in our universe....

the nebulosity to the east is designated ic 444 and two other nebulosities are also in this image at the top. This bit of gas is
a challenge, low surface brightness requres a lot of exposure and near perfect skies... I got a break on December 3rd, 2008 with
clear, stable skies for the duration of the imaging.... 68 ten-minute subs, 11 hours 20 minutes in two sessions. The sky stayed at
8 out of 10 with transparency 6 of 10 for the entire session.... a lucky two nights between some not so good ones... there is a tiny
edge of OIII on the top of the jellyfish... hard to hold...

Vixen/Synta 80mm ED f7.5 piggyback on the Meade classic 12 inch, Hapmod 350d controlled by Nebulosity 2.0.6, guided by the main tube at f6.9
with DSI pro mono and PHD. Processed using darks, bad pixel removal, color balance and curves in Nebulosity, final adjustments including layer masking
min/hipass, star color enhancement, GradientXTerminator, and a couple of other things in Photoshop CS3....

 

enjoy peaceful skies