IC 5070 - The Pelican Nebula - 2019 Version
Date: September 22, 2019
Cosgrove’s Cosmos Catalog ➤#0011
The Pelican Nebula (IC 5070) as captured by my William Optics 132mm Platform. (click to enlarge)
Table of Contents Show (Click on lines to navigate)
About the Target
IC 5070, also known as the Pelican Nebula, is a rich region of gas and dust that is undergoing rapid star formation. Located 1,800 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus. It's called the Pelican nebula because.... well, damned if I know.... doesn't look like one to me at all!
(Comment 8-2-21: You can actually see the shape of the pelican in this early image. It does become more evident with greater exposure. See a later version of this target HERE.)
About the Project
It was a perfect night with good seeing, and this shot was almost straight-up - thus, I was imaging through the least amount of atmosphere. This image results from 52 exposures of 3 minutes each, for a total exposure of 156 minutes. Taken with a Williams Optics 132mm FLT APO Refractor, ASI294MC-Pro camera, on an IOptron CEM60 mount.
Updated Comments 08-02-21 (as I publish this into the website):
Given my experience and limited processing capability at the time, this image was not half bad! It still had the problem of clipping the sky levels to black and a heavy-handed application of noise reduction. It was only much later that I recognized that I could see the shape of the pelican if I knew what I was looking for!
The Annotated Image
An annotated image of IC 5070 was created using Pixinsight’s ImageSolver and AnnotateImage Scripts.
The Location in the Sky
IAU/Sky & Telescope Constellation Map of Triangulum with Messier 33 marked by the yellow arrow.
Capture Details
Light frames
52X x 180 seconds, bin 1x1 @ -15C
Total integration time: 2.6 hours
Cal Frames
not recorded.
Capture Hardware
Scope: William Optics 132mm FLT F/7 APO
Guide Scope: William Optics 50mm
Camera: ZWO ASI294MC-Pro
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI290Mini
Focus Motor: Pegasus Astro Focus Cube 2
Mount: Ioptron CEM60
Polar Alignment: Ioptron Ipolar integrated alignment cameras
Software
Capture Software: PHD2 Guider, Sequence Generator Pro controller
Image Processing: Deepsky Stacker, Photoshop, Coffee, extensive processing indecision and second-guessing, and much swearing…..
I was still learning to use the main rig, when I soon made my first modification. I was doing the Polar Alignment the old fashioned way - using an illuminated polar scope. This caused me to kneel down on the driveway and look up through the polar axis. This was killing my knees, my back and my neck! I hated it and I was sure I was not getting very good alignments with it…..