The Lion Nebula is estimated to be between 10,000 - 12,000 light-years away, in the constellation Cepheus. A wider FOV or a camera rotator would have allowed me to get the entire nebula in view, but the resemblance is still visible in this rotated and cropped version I think. It is an extensive emission nebula, with a distinctive 'searchlight' feature that appears to emanate from within the red region of this image. The red areas are primarily due to ionized Hydrogen emission and the Blue regions to OIII emission in this bicolor version. Equipment: ZWO ASI1600MM-C Camera @ -20C and Gain:200 Offset:50 Software Bisque MyT Mount Stellarvue SVQ100 Astrograph Refractor, 580mm @ f/5.8 Innovations Foresight ONAG Software: Pixinsight Commercial Version 1.8 Lightroom CC Photoshop CC Innovations Foresight SkyGuard Light Frames: Hα: 35 x 360 secs ( 3 hrs 30 mins) OIII: 32 x 360 secs (3 hrs 12 mins) Red: 13 x 30 secs (6 mins 30 secs) Green: 14 x 30 secs (7 mins) Blue: 11 x 30 secs (5 mins 30 secs) 7 hrs 01 mins total Dark Frames: 10 x 60 secs, RGB (30 mins) 10 x 360 secs, Ha,OIII (2 hrs) Bias Frames 100 Flat Frames 20 each filter
Mercury transits across the face of the sun, seemingly no larger than some of the small active sunspots.
More than an hours worth of exposures shows the star trails over looking to NNW out over the Chama River.
