vdB 14

vdB 14

Reflection Nebula in Camelopardalis

Constellation: Camelopardalis
Ra: 03h 31m 02s
Dec: +59d 47m 51s
Distance: 3,000 light years
Image Size: 35' x 35'
North: Right

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Description

van den Berg vdB 14 is an elliptically-shaped, blue reflection nebula in Camelopardalis near vdB 15 and Shrapless 2-202 emission nebula. It is illuminated by the very bright mag 4.2 supergiant (B9Ia) star shown in the image (HD21291). Both vdB 14 and 15 are embedded in the Cam OB1 group of type O-B3 stars and supergiants.

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: 13.5 hrs Total: 3.5 hrs Lum, 10 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: 09/18/2009

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