Sh2-174 Planetary Nebula

This nebula, popularly known as Valentine Rose Nebula, has both Sh2-174 and PK 120+18.1 as catalogue designations. 

It is therefore an unusual object: the fact that an object shares…Read more

Elephant's Trunk Nebula

IC 1396 is a large and fascinating gas ionized region in constellation Cepheus, 3000 light years from Earth. Among the intriguing dark structures in the interior of IC1396, the Elephant's Trunk Nebula certainly stands out.

The nebula is so named because of …Read more

Starless images, StarNet2 and StarXTerminator

In my last image of M16, I decided to present it in a version without stars to focus attention on the "Pillars of Creation". To arrive to the starless version I used in this image, StarXTerminator from Russell Croman.

Two years ago, I made some kind of comparison between StarNet2 and StarXTerminator …Read more,

M16 the Eagle Nebula and the Pillars...

It is a bit unclear for me why, in so many years of imaging, never tried M16 the Eagle Nebula. Maybe the only reason is that there are so many interesting targets and the limitation of time...

Anyway, this season I decided to image it and I devoted three nights to gather data…Read more,

Van den Bergh 152: Halpha added

Widefield image of a region of Cepheus with special interest in van den Bergh 152 (vdB 152, also known as Cederblad 201, or the Wolf's Cave Nebula), the blue reflection nebula on the right-center and Dengel-Hartl 5 (DeHt5, PK 111 +11.1) the planetary nebula on the bottom (a bit on the left), but including also many other interesting objects: LDN1217, LDN1219, B175…Read more,

Van den Bergh 141: The Ghost Nebula

Van den Bergh 141 (VdB141, also designated as Sh2-136) The Ghost Nebula, is a reflection nebula located in the constellation Cepheus. I really like this region of Cepheus and the image I took of it in 2010 has been my desktop wallpaper all these years ... Read more,

NGC 4449 revisited

I first imaged NGC 4449 in 2010 as part of one of my first collaborations with Dr. David Martinez Delgado. You can see my image from then in a post on my old blog with information about the scientific work on the “stellar tidal stream around NGC 4449” by clicking here (I recommend taking a look to the close up view (0.202"/pixel scale) of image taken by 8.2 meter Subaru telescope... Read more,