Dust and reflection nebula in Aries
Published 10 Nov 2020

Stacks Image 4832

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About this object

On the border of Taurus, Perseus and Aries lies a very dusty area full of molecular clouds, Young Stellar Objects (YSO's), Herbig-Haro objects and reflection nebula. These molecular clouds are forming new stars deep within their dark depths and these protostars form bipolar jets. As these jets collide with the interstellar medium they form Herbig-Haro (HH) objects. Most of these HH objects are reddish and several can be seen in the above image near or within the dark molecular clouds. This image tends to have just about everything. Dark dust clouds, two prominent reflection nebula, VdB 16, the bluish cloud surrounding the 9th mag star SAO 75942 on the left and VdB 13, the bluish cloud surrounding the 9.49 mag star SAO 56444 on the right side. Many HH objects are scattered about the image and also a few faint galaxies. The dark dust clouds are also cataloged as Barnard objects. B202, 204, 205, and 206 are within the image above. This is truly a fascinating area of the sky. Included is an annotated image showing the position of some of these objects.

This image was taken at the Eldorado Star Party in Eldorado Texas in Oct of 2020 and is comprised of 7.69hrs of data through Luminance, Red, Green and Blue filters using a 6" Stellarvue refractor and ASI 6200 CMOS camera.

Image Details

  • Optics : Stellarvue SVX 152 refractor @f6 900mm FL
  • Mount: Paramount MYT
  • Camera: ZWO ASI6200
  • Filters: Chroma 50mm LRGB
  • Exposure (min): LRGBHaOIII 96.5:112.5:125:127.5 7.7hrs, 2x2 binning
  • Camera/Mount Control: The Sky X, Voyager
  • Guiding: Unguided
  • Processing: PixInsight 1.8,
  • Location: Eldorado Star Party, Eldorado Texas
  • Sky: Typical SQM 21.5, Bortle 1-2, Dark
  • Date: 16-17 Oct 2020
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