Looking around the web I find only a very few photos of this guy. Half of them are of SH2-171 but are labeled SH2-187. I don't know why the confusion.

My weather here has been just awful since September. 4 dark of the moon periods wiped out by clouds. I needed all four months to get what little data I did get for this guy. Virtually every frame was taken a different night due to sucker holes closing on me. The blue frames are very weak. This time of the year ice crystals in the air hang like fog. I took the two blue frames after this ice became a real problem. Equalizing the color frames with this much variance in the frames leads to rather noisy color data. But this is the last I'll be able to get any data as it will be in a huge pine next new moon. So I'm going with this.

As far as I can tell there's no name for this guy. Looks sort of like a spider to me. I can't explain why, it just does.

This whole area is full of gas and dust so would make an excellent target for a wide field instrument. It's located in Cassiopeia, a couple degrees north and west of Delta. This FOV is about 33.5' by 22.4' in size, a bit under one quarter square degree. Each pixel is about 2" of arc in this reduced image (reduced from my normal 1.003" per pixel that is).

14" LX2004 @ f/10, L=5x10', RGB=2x10', All frames binned 2x2, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME

Rick

Attached Images

SH2-187LUM5X10RGB2X10_50.jpg (135.1 KB, 72 views)

Beautiful work and an exercise in utmost patience. I will count my blessings that I am getting at one clear night per week. I have never seen this one but it is a bit too far the north for me. I can only wish you clear skys while it is still in a favorable position.

Kind regards
Matt

Great pic I can definately see the spider in the center there.

Rick it's a very beautiful shot of the spider , I wonder how it would look in narrow band. My first also you did great. Clear Skies my friend

A quick look at it showed unusually strong green and blue from it. This is one reason the color is so different from most HII regions. I was afraid a lot of it might not show in H alpha so went with the RGB. Also I was fighting clouds and really need 30 minute frames with H alpha. Clouds barely consented to 10. Only two frames were taken the same night and then they weren't consecutive. There was a good two hours and a meridian flip between them.

Maybe next year though my to-do list is now so long I won't be revisiting much I'm afraid. Still I may try to get better blue frames next fall and a few more lum. frames.

Rick

That's an amazing shot! Thanks for sharing.

__________________
Climate Change Australia

Hi Rick,

Excellent catch! I haven't seen this one. Thanks for hunting it down for us. It is good to see that you are getting some imaging in. I've been totally clouded out for over a month and there is no relief in sight.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New year to ya.

Tom

Tom,
This one would be a perfect catch for your astrograph as there's much more to this dark/emission system.
Rick

'Meridian flip'. I have wondered what to call this event aside from a confounded nuisance Rick. Do you rotate your images or the camera to deal with the resulting misalignment?

Kind regards
Matt

Meridian flip is just the term our club uses. I have no idea how wide spread it is. The one thing I don't like about the Paramount is it won't go more than 5 degrees past the meridian. I'd like to be able to make my own abort map as in much of the sky I can go several hours past the meridian with a tube as short as the 14" LX200R's tube. Only north of the zenith would a narrower range be needed and there I have a tree so don't go there.

I just rotate them. I try to remove the camera or even move it in any way only a couple times a year. I can use the scope visually without touching the camera. Actually my alignment software handles the rotation. It's rather transparent to me. But the Paramount is so accurate I can do the flip and still be dead on the target. I often don't lose one pixel when doing this. Just that I have to find a new guide star sometimes. Again the Paramount is so good at tracking with an object this high in declination I don't bother guiding. It will track just fine for 10 minutes -- 20 is about the maximum at +60 degrees, no guiding needed. So I just flip and go or would have if not for the clouds. This guy was done over 4 months and 10 nights. The first few were east of the meridian except for the cloud delayed one, the rest west.

Rick