This is my longest project to date—32 HOURS OF DATA over nine nights. I originally planned on taking 50 hours, but the weather and moon got in the way of what I aimed for. I’m still thrilled with the progress. I learned a lot during this image, and I’m glad I took on this challenge.
I got about 8 hours of RGB data supplemented by around 17 hours of Ha and 2 hours of Oiii, along with another 4 hours of luminance data.
This is VdB152, it doesn’t have a common name, but a friend called it ‘The Cosmic Penguin.’ There are multiple nebulae in this image. A Dark nebula, LDN 1217, forms the thick pillar. There is the reflection nebula along the bottom called LBN538. Not to mention the whisps of Ha going along the corners of the nebula.
This will continue to be a project for me, and I’ll collect some data over the next couple of years and get more detail.
