vdB 15

vdB 15

Reflection Nebula in Camelopardalis

Constellation: Camelopardalis
Ra: 3h 29min 55s
Dec: +58deg 52min 43s
Distance: 3,000 light years
Image Size: 35' x 35'
North: Right

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Description

vdB 15 (and neighboring vdB 14) are elongated reflection nebula in Camelopardalis, each extending for ~0.8 degree in the N-S direction. They are both illuminated by two supergiant stars, HD 21291 (B9 Ia) and HD 21389 (A0 Ia) as part of the large Cam OB1 association at a distance of ~3,000 light years – an area of new star formation. vdB 15 (and 14) are classified as refleciton nebula. However, there is a strong red component in the cloud structure and as a result, the object has a pink hue. This could possibly be from extended red emission from H-a emitting stars in the general vicinity, similar to IC59 and IC63.

Although I am not skilled in making mosaics (as the following image demonstrates), I realized after imaging vdB 14 and 15 that I could take another LRGB image and fill in the space between the two objects. The additional image was 4 hours LRGB. PixInsight 1.6 and Photoshop were used to stitch the 3 panes together and blend the images. If I knew in advance that I wanted to make a mosaic, I would have rotated the frames in a way that would produce a long, continuous image. I hope you don’t mind the jagged edges, but if it is any comfort, this is typical of many published Hubble Space Telescope mosaic images.

Here is a star map from TheSkyX that matches the above mosaic.

Exposure: 13 hrs total: 3.25 hrs Lum, 9.75 hrs RGB
Telescope: RCOS 16
Mount: Software Bisque Paramount ME
Oag: Astrodon MonsterMOAG
Acquisition: CCD AutoPilot4
Calibration: CCDStack2
Observatory Site: Sierra-Remote Observatories, Shaver Lake, CA
Camera: Apogee U16M
Filters: Astrodon Gen 2 LRGB
Guider: SBIG ST-402
Camera Operation: MaximDL4.62
Processing: Photoshop CS3
Image Date: 09/20/2009

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