(IAAC) Flaming Star nebula - an IAAC challenge!

[Lew Gramer]

> Below is a link to a wonderful image of the central region of AUR by an
> amateur in South Florida, USA.

Apologies to those IAAC readers who did not receive the forwarded email that I
mentioned in my previous post. Here it is in full - and the linked image is
well worth examining, IMHO, even for those whose view may be jaundiced by
having seen too many amateur images of this region in the past. Lovely.

Clear skies!
Lew


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [sfaaa_members] Auriga
Date: Sat, 20 Dec 2008 12:31:28 -0500
From: Lew Gramer
To: sfaaa

Fred, that was just a stunning image - I particularly love the blue of the
little reflection features nearest the exciting stars, but the vast sweep of
the emission features all the way down to the lower right corner of the image
is also nice! I've tried repeatedly over the years to see the Flaming Star
nebula visually from dark sites, with everything from wide FOV (5" f/5 refr.)
to large aperture (20", 36" dobs), and wide ranges of magnifications and
filters of course. I've never managed it! Has anyone else?

This image gives a hint why it's so tough: by far the brightest features seem
to be those little reflective dust clouds - and of course, a filter just wipes
those right out. Still, I have hopes. Maybe some day from northern Florida?

Clear skies,
Lew Gramer


Fred Lehman wrote:
> Greetings to all:
>
> Not wanting to let you guys have all the fun, but being a bit to lazy to
> spend the entire evening painstakingly taking a mosaic, I instead put
> the M25C camera onto my tiny little finder scope to capture this rather
> nice snapshot of the central portion of the constellation of Auriga,
> showing the pair of nebulae IC405 and IC410. A cropped and scaled JPEG
> picture has been uploaded to:
> "http://www.starfred.com/images/auriga_081219.jpg" for your viewing
> pleasure. The field of view is 3.0 by 2.2 degrees with a spatial
> resolution of 6.6 arcseconds per pixel.
>
> Enjoy
> Fred Lehman