Sh 2-157 (Lobster Claw Nebula), NGC 7635 (Bubble Nebula),…
Huge HII region in Cepheus and Cassiopeia. Massive stars illuminate surrounding gas clouds. Wolf-Rayet stars power the blueish central part of the Lobster Claw and a massive star blows up the bubble, which is nothing else but a shockwave generated by fast stellar winds. The open star cluster just on the top in the center has a funny form … like the tip of an arrow.
The following shows two cropped parts: the Bubble Nebula and the Northern Lagoon Nebula.
Acquisition Details
Scope: Borg 90FL/500 with 1.08x Flattener
Filter: IDAS NBZ
Camera: ZWO ASI 2600MC Pro
Mount: Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro
Guiding Scope: MiniBorg 50
Guiding Camera: ZWO ASI 290MM
Guiding Software: PHD2
Acquisition Software: APT
Light Frames: 90x300sec in two nights
Flats, Dark Flats, Bias, Darks
Camera settings: Gain 100, Offset 20
Bortle 4-5, no moon
Acquisition Dates: July 05, 2021, July 09, 2021
Processing
Imaging & Stacking: PixInsight
Denoise: Topaz AI Denoise
Star halo removal: Gimp
The following is only a rough list of workflow steps used.
I tried so many variants, that I cannot list it here.
The crops are processed differently: stars were not extracted but simply reduced by using a custom star mask and Morphological Transformation.
The main picture follows approximately this workflow: