Sharpless 174, also known as the Valentine Rose Nebula, is planetary nebula located in constellation Cepheus. At declination +80º, is the closest known to Polaris.
It is, for me, a very interesting and complex area of the sky, where the bright nebula exists along (from our vantage point) faint Integrated Flux Nebula (IFN) and super faint Ha clouds. To properly process it, several layers needed to be handled – RGB, Ha, Oiii, Sii and surrounding Ha. It is not surprising then this became by longest and most complex work so far and, on top of it, I was unlucky that the 110 hours gathered in 2024 went down the drain following my SDD drive collapse back then – ouch!
This year I decided to go after it again, now with a faster telescope. Processing this image was quite complex in order showcase both broadband and narrowband nebulas without one of them overcoming the other, was well as to balance very faint structures with others not so faint. It took me some back and forth to get there but despite that I enjoyed it a lot and that’s, in the end, what matters in an hobby.
Details:
Red: 23h46; Green: 14h24; Blue: 15h15; Ha: 38h20; Oiii: 19h20; Sii: 8h20
Twinstar FG80 | Noctutec Red Dwarf Mark II 200mm f4 | TS Optics GPU Coma Corrector 1x | QHYCCD 268M | Optolong RGB | Astronomik Ha|Oiii|Sii 6 nm | RBFocus Myrrdin 2.3 | RBFocus Camelot 2’’ | RBFocus Excalibur V2
Acquisition: N.I.N.A. | Processing: Pixinsight