NGC2174 & NGC2175:NGC2174 is a large molecular cloud, whose dominant emission is in the hydrogen alpha wavelength, which is ionized by the energy of the bright stars in the star cluster in its midst, NGC2175. They are thought to be about 6400 light years away from us. At that distance, NGC2174 is about 70 light years in diameter (it covers an area of the sky larger than the full moon).
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Technical Information:
(HaR)RGB: 450:90:90:180; The luminance layer consists of a blending of (i) fifteen 30-minute unbinned exposures taken through an Astrodon hydrogen alpha filter, and (ii) six 15-minute unbinned exposures through an Astrodon red filter. The red channel is a blend of the same Ha and red-filtered data, but blended differently. G consists of six 15-minute unbinned images, while B consists of twelve 15-minute unbinnned images.
Equipment: AP130 f/6 Starfire, SBIG ST-10XME with CFW8 (Astrodon filter set), on a Bisque Paramount ME German Equatorial Mount.
Image Acquisition/Camera Control: CCDSoft v5, controlled with CCDAutoPilot3, working in concert with TheSky v6.
Processing: All color images calibrated (darks and dawn flats), debloomed, aligned, Poisson reject, and combine for all channels performed in CCDStack. Color combine in Photoshop. Finish work (including curves and levels, increasing saturation, smart sharpen luminance layer) was done in Photoshop CS2.
Location: Data acquired remotely from the Tejas Observatory, located on the grounds of New Mexico Skies, near Mayhill, NM (elevation 7300 feet).
Date: Luminance images taken on the nights of February 7, 12, 16 and 17, 2007. Color images taken during the nights of February 15, 16 and 17, 2007.
Pixel scale: 1.67 arcseconds per pixel.
CCD Chip temperature: -25C
Seeing: Generally good, but variable.
Transparency: Good.
Moon Phase: Minimal or no moon throughout imaging times.
