NGC 7023 Iris Nebula
The Iris Nebula is a reflection nebula/dust complex located in Cepheus. The central star is magnitude 7 making it fairly bright in a telescope and in fact just below naked eye visibility in very dark skies. While this makes the star easy to find in a telescope the stars brightness tends to overwhelm the nebulosity. In my 8" reflector I can just see the barest hint of "fuzz" around the star. I can not see any of the dark dust clouds which are barely visible surrounding the bright portion of the nebula in this photograph. With more exposure time the dark dust clouds would become more evident in the photograph and in a wider field shot the area to the right (in this photograph) of the reflection portion of the nebula forms a fairly long and dramatic dark streamer.
Details:
Imaged on 7/30/2006 at 12:15 AM Central Time from Fordland, MO during a Springfield Astronomical Society monthly star party
Equipment:
Camera: Canon 300D (unmodified)
at Prime Focus
Imaging Scope: 8” F4.9 Orion Reflector
Guide Scope: 120mm F5.0 Orion refractor
Guiding: GuideDog software and SAC-7b camera and TechnoPlus LX200 emulator
Mount: Losmandy CG-11
Image Information:Imaging Scope: 8” F4.9 Orion Reflector
Guide Scope: 120mm F5.0 Orion refractor
Guiding: GuideDog software and SAC-7b camera and TechnoPlus LX200 emulator
Mount: Losmandy CG-11
20 Frames, 5 Minutes each
@ ISO 800 + Avg of 5 Darks
No flat or bias frames
Captured with DSLR Control
Focused and Processed with Images Plus 2.75
No flat or bias frames
Captured with DSLR Control
Focused and Processed with Images Plus 2.75