IC 405 - The Flaming Star Nebula
Date: November 15, 2020
Cosgrove’s Cosmos Catalog ➤#0061
IC 405 - The Flaming Star Nebula as captured by my William Optics 132mm Platform. (click image for full resolution via Astrobin.com)
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About the Target
IC 405 - The Flaming Star Nebula, is also known as Caldwell 31, is a nebula in the constellation Auriga surrounding the bright blue irregular variable star AE Aurigae. This nebula is located about 1500 light-years away and is about 5 light-years across. The red portions are from emission nebulae, while the bluer portions are reflection nebulae, reflecting the light of the bright star, AE Aurigae.
About the Project
I shot this over the nights of 11-08 & 11-09 and ended up with 136 subs of 2.5 minutes exposure. I was hoping for an integration time of 5.5 hours. If you saw my Cave Nebula image, you read about the problem I encountered on the second night of shooting - where thin cirrus clouds were reflecting light pollution located to my north. I had the same problem with this image, but it was not as severe. I ended up having to lose about 34 subs because they were much worse than the others. This gave me a total useful integration time of about 4.25 hours. Fortunately, I did not lose as many frames on this one and the noise was more easily handled.
The Annotated Image
An annotated image of IC 405 created by using Pixinsight’s ImageSolver and AnnotateImage Scripts.
The Location in the Sky
IAU/Sky & Telescope Constellation Map of Auriga with M74 marked by the yellow arrow.
Capture Details
Light frames
Captured on the nights of 11-08-20 & 11-09-20
102 x 150 seconds, bin 1x1 @ -15C. ( I was hoping for 150!)
Total integration time: 4.25 hours
Cal Frames
45 Bias exposures
25 Dark exposures
45 Flats
Capture Hardware
Scope: William Optics 132mm FLT F/7 APO
Guide Scope: Apterna 60mm
Camera: ZWO ASI294MC-Pro
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI290Mini
Focus Motor: Pegasus Astro Focus Cube 2
Field Rotator: Pegasus Astro Falcon
Mount: Ioptron CEM60
Polar Alignment: Ioptron Ipolar integrated alignment cameras
Software
Capture Software: PHD2 Guider, Sequence Generator Pro controller
Image Processing: Deepsky Stacker, Pixinsight, Photoshop, Coffee, extensive processing indecision and second-guessing, and much swearing…..
During the Summer of 2020, whilst stuck at home because of Covid I became very in improving the automation of the platform and achieving a more precise framing of the shots I made…