COPYRIGHT, PLEASE NOTE

All the material on this website is copyrighted to J-P Metsavainio, if not otherwise stated. Any content on this website may not be reproduced without the author’s permission.

BUY A MUSEUM QUALITY POSTER

Sunday, March 30, 2025

A Fossil Footprint Nebula, NGC 1491

 I have shot this emission nebula in Perseus several times during the years and every time felt that I got more out of it.

I have wide field and mosaic images including the NGC 1491 as well as longer focal length photos with various reflecting telescopes. Some of them are included in the blog post as an example



NGC 1491, the Fossil Footprint Nebula
Click for a large image, 1800 x 2000 pixels

In Visual Colors

Photo in visual palette from the emission of an ionized elements


In Mapped Colors

A mapped color image from a light emitted by an ionized elements, 
sulfur=red, hydrogen=green and oxygen=blue



A Closeup






INFO

NGC 1491, also known as LBN 704, SH2-206 or the Fossil Footprint Nebula, is an emission type bright nebula located about 9,800 light years away from Earth in the constellation of Perseus. The nebula gets its deep red coloration due to many massive stars (such as BD+50 866) embedded within NGC 1491 producing large amounts of ultraviolet radiation ionizing the elements in Nebula and making them glow light that can be seen in this image




Wide Field shots of the Area
Click for a much large image


Area of interest is marked as a white rectangle



Wider view
Click for a much large image

Area of interest is marked as a white rectangle




Older Long Focal Length Photos of NGC 1491

2015
Blog post with technical details HERE


2013
Blog post with technical details HERE




Technical details

Processing workflow

Image acquisition, MaximDL v6.5
Stacked and calibrated in CCDStack2.
Deconvolution with a CCDStack2 Positive Constraint, 27 iterations, added at 50% weight
Color combine in PS
Levels and curves in PS

Imaging optics, 
Celestron EDGE 14" with 0.7 Focal reducer

Mount, 
MesuMount Mark II

Cameras, 
Imaging camera Apogee Alta U9000M and Apogee seven slot filter wheel
Guider camera, Lodestar x 2 and SXV-AO Active Optics @ 5hz

filters, 
Astrodon 5nm H-alpha, 3nm S-II and 3nm O-III

Total exposure time 12h
H-alpha, 24 x 1200 s, binned 1x1 = 8 h 
O-III, 6x 1200 s, binned 2x2 = 2h 
S-II, 6 x 1200 s. binned 2x2 = 2h 

 

No comments: