This is a framing of dust clouds among the stars of the Hyades star cluster in Taurus. At lower left is the emission nebula Sharpless 2-239 embedded
This is a framing of dust clouds among the stars of the Hyades star cluster in Taurus. At lower left is the emission nebula Sharpless 2-239 embedded in the dense and brownish dust cloud LDN 1551. At upper right is the bright reflection nebula NGC 1555, called Hind's Variable Nebula, aka Sharpless 2-238. It is embedded in another dark swirling cloud that does not appear to have a separate entry in dark nebula catalogues. The bright star above centre is Ain, or Epsilon Tauri; the blue star at bottom is Delta3 Tauri. The stars in the image lie along the upper edge of the V-shaped Hyades star cluster. The field of view is ° by °. The odd nebula NGC 1555 was discovered by John Russell Hind in 1852 and seems to be variable in brightness due to changes in the brightness of its embedded source star T Tauri, a prototype of a class of young, newly formed stars that vary in brightness. An adjacent object, NGC 1554, was catalogued by Otto Struve, but has faded from view; thus it is called Struve's Lost Nebula. This is a stack of 30 x 6-minute exposures (= 3 hours) with the Astro-Tech AT90CFT refractor at and the filter-modified Canon EOS R camera at ISO 800, though no filter was used in taking the images. I shot this on a very clear night from home November 17/18, 2023. Autoguided with the MGEN3 stand-alone guider on the Astro-Physics Mach1 mount. Applications of luminosity masks created with Lumenzia, plus the nebula filter action from the PhotoKemi action set and the Detail Extractor filter from the Nik Collection 6 Color EFX plug-in brought out the faint nebulosity. An application of AI Generative Fill eliminated an unsightly lens flare from nearby Aldebaran, though I defy you to see any trace of the GenFill!
Size: 6700px × 4440px
Photo credit: © Alan Dyer / VWPics / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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