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IC63/IC59 by Dave Collings

Submitted November 16, 2023 by Chelsea Chin

IC63 / IC59: “The Ghost of Cassiopeia”

“IC 63, also known as “The Ghost of Cassiopeia”,  is an area of molecular hydrogen clouds and dust located 550 light-years away in the constellation of Cassiopeia. This region is both an emission nebula and a reflection nebula. The gas and dust in this region are bombarded with radiation from the bright star Gamma Cassiopeia. This Blue-White Giant star that forms the middle star in the “W” form made by the constellation.”

• Total of 26 hours in this image due to the difficulty of it being so dim with minimal OIII signal.
• The image has 6 hours of Ha, 11 Hours of OIII, and 9 hours of SII. It was imaged on 4 different evenings taking over 2 1/2 weeks to collect the data.
• Plane Wave 12.5”CDK with 0.66 PW reducer sitting on an Astro-Physics 1100GTO CP4 mount.
• Main camera is an ATIK 16200 Mono with Chroma filters.  This image is an SHO narrowband stacked and edited in PixInsight.

 

David Collings – Blue Ridge Observatory | Sparta, North Carolina  USA

www.blueridge-observatory.com