The photo above shows an emerald glow surrounding the nucleus of Comet Homes, as photographed on October 30 in the constellation of Perseus. It was taken from the New Forest Observatory in England. This peculiar comet suddenly increased in brightness from a magnitude 12 (telescopic target only) to a magnitude of almost 2 (easily visible with the unaided eye, even in urban areas). Astronomers believe it exploded as it moved away from the Sun, but if so, it’s not known exactly what triggered the explosion. At its brightest, Comet Holmes was almost as bright as the brightest stars in Perseus

We’ve posted about this before but I’ll repost the imaging data because Noel has produced a great result with this image:

The Sky 90 at f#4.5 with the SXVF-M25C one-shot colour camera was used to capture 130 subs at 1-minute per sub.  But the data was stacked in two different ways! 

Because the comet moves at a slightly different rate to the stars, one data set was stacked with the comet as the reference point (giving a stationary comet and trailing stars) and the other data set was stacked with reference to the stars (giving stationary stars and a blurred comet). 

The two data sets were then combined to give the stationary comet sitting in a stationary star field.

The constellation of Cygnus the Swan, also referred to as the Northern Cross, is now nearly overhead for viewers in the Northern Hemisphere around 8:00 p.m. The stars composing Cygnus reside along the spine of our galaxy — the Milky Way. Surrounding the central star in Cygnus, Sadr (upper left center), is the massive emission nebula IC1318 (in red), also called the Gamma Cygni nebulosity. A sea of just the color red can be boring to the eye, but here notable blue gems, including the reflection nebula NGC6914, add substantially to the beauty of this image

This is a Sky 90 image taken using the old SXV-H9C camera.  This image represents approximately 4 hours of RGB data using 3 minute subs and 4 hours of H-alpha using 6 minute subs.  Just one tiny mistake in the description – Sadr isn’t in the image

The wide field image of the Horsehead region near the bright star Alnitak in the belt of Orion was taken using the Sky 90/SXVF-M25C combination by Greg at the New Forest Observatory and processed by Noel in Florida, U.S.A.   You can see the Horsehead Nebula at the center of the image.  

The region of space where the Horsehead Nebula is found is quite unique in that it has all of the major types of nebulae:

• The blue reflection nebulae including IC2023 and IC2024.
• The horsehead nebula iteslef (a dark nebula that resembles a horse head) B33.
• The deep red emission nebula (behind the Horsehead) IC434.

The deep red emission nebula behind the Horsehead is ionised hydrogen [Hydrogen alpha radiation, or just H-alpha] emitting light at 656 nm and is designated IC434.

This area of space is possibly the most photographed region of the Heavens – and with good reason - it’s completely awe inspiring.