Total Exposure Time: 8:00 hours L(bin1); RGB(bin2),
LRGB 220:90:80:90 / / 48 frames of 10 minutes each
RA 06h 33m 10s, Dec +10° 10' 00"
Pos Angle +00° 40', FL 599.6 mm
This image is 1369x1014 pixels
Officina Stellare Riccardi-Honders Veloce 200 RH OTA
Officina Stellare - http://www.officinastellare.com/products_scheda.php?idProd=15
On my site - http://www.pbase.com/boren/officina_stellare_riccardihonders_veloce_rh_200
Deeper technical informaiton on the Riccardi-Honders design - http://www.telescope-optics.net/honders_camera.htm
SBIG ST8300M, LRGB Astrodon Gen II filters
NEQ6 mount, guided w/PHD
This is a crop of the larger image posted earlier (press: "previous" on the top right here).
It comprises a close look at the three flower-like nebulae, each recording the first phases of newborn stars, as they paint their nascent dust cloud with a bright blue light. Top right is the southern part of IC447 (IC2169, LBN903) (Dreyer's Nebula); below, on the bottom-left of this image IC446 (IC2167, LBN898) shines in blue, just under the dark dusty lane connecting it to IC446 above; NGC2247 (LBN901)is the prominent blue nebula occupying the top middle part of the image, and NGC2245 (LBN904) shines just under it, both part of the same vast dark dust cloud.
I have chosen to name them "The Camas Lilies Nebula", as in my mind they are reminiscent of 3 Camas Lilies on a dark soil background...
More on these objects:
IC 447/2169 is a reflection nebula but … it has an identity crisis. The NGC project - now back on line at a new URL, http://www.ngcicproject.org/, under new ownership but same content by Dr. Robert E. Erdmann, Jr. - has this to say about the nebula and the nearby reflection nebula (half degree north of it) reflection nebula (IC-446/IC-2167) I haven't as yet imaged. They, though, are connected by a dark nebula:
"The same two objects [IC-446/IC-2167, and IC-447/IC-2169] were apparently discovered twice by Barnard... Neither of Barnard's positions is particularly good, though we can get close to the apparent center of his large, diffused nebulosity if we adopt his RA for IC 447 and his Dec for IC 2169. Even though his two positions are more than 10 arcmin apart, they clearly refer to the same object: it is big (I make it about 30 x 30 arcmin on the DSS). Barnard notes "several stars 9-10 involved"; those stars are indeed there."
Barnard never realized they were the same object. Though in a later publication he did retract his discovery of IC 447 saying it was a duplicate of NGC 2245 -- the cone nebula. Which, of course is incorrect. He did though send the data on both to Dreyer who did publish it in his second IC catalog without apparent verification and likely accepted Barnard's description without viewing it himself. So even the most careful of visual astronomer's, and Barnard is considered one of the best, did make mistakes that the later photographic era would have prevented. Or maybe not considering the SH2-235 problems.
IC 447/2169 (it is also known as Dreyer's Nebula) is located in Monoceros, the unicorn. So obviously another that has been waiting on the hard drive for some time. It is thought to be part of the huge cloud of dust and gas that includes the far more famous emission and dark nebula known as the Cone Nebula as well as the Christmas Tree open star cluster and the Fox Fur Nebula. If so it is about 2700 light years distant, considerably further away than the nearby Orion Nebula complex.
Being a reflection nebula it is a blue color. The color comes from scattered star light of the illuminating stars which are either in or behind it. The nebula is blue for the same reason our sky is blue. The tiny molecules of dust and gas scatter blue light better than the other colors due to its short wavelength. It matters little what color the illuminating stars are, as long as they emit some blue light the nebula was take on a blue color same as the somewhat yellow sun still results in our blue sky. (ref.: http://cosmoquest.org/forum/showthread.php/89363-IC-447-2169-A-large-reflection-nebula)
