The 'Ghosts' of Star Gamma Cassiopeia: Nebulae IC 59 & IC 63

The 'Ghosts' of Star Gamma Cassiopeia: Nebulae IC 59 & IC 63

Gamma Cassiopeiae shines high in northern autumn evening skies. It is the brightest spiky star in this telescopic field of view toward the constellation Cassiopeia. Gamma Cas shares the ethereal-looking scene with ghostly interstellar clouds of gas and dust, IC 59 and IC 63. About 600 light-years distant, the clouds are not actually ghosts. They are slowly disappearing though, eroding under the influence of energetic radiation from hot and luminous gamma Cas. Gamma Cas is physically located only 3 to 4 light-years from the nebulae. Slightly closer to gamma Cas, IC 63 is dominated by red H-alpha light emitted as hydrogen atoms ionized by the star's ultraviolet radiation recombine with electrons. Farther from the star, IC 59 shows proportionally less H-alpha emission but more of the characteristic blue tint of dust reflected star light. The cosmic stage spans over 1 degree or 10 light-years at the estimated distance of gamma Cas and friends.

Astrophotographer Markus Horn: "The area around the well-known 'Ghost of Cassiopeia' had been on my agenda for a while, and this year I was finally able to make it happen. Once again, I wanted to use my fast f/2 optics and a 400mm focal length to capture not only RGB data but also as much H-alpha signal as possible across the entire region. My goal was to show how deeply IC 63 and IC 59 are embedded within the H-alpha clouds. For this, I gathered 9.5 hours of RGB and 6.75 hours of H-alpha data."

"To ensure that the beautiful reflection nebulae of IC 63 and IC 59 weren’t completely overwhelmed by the narrowband data, I combined the H-alpha data in this area with the RGB data using continuum substraction. Finally, I invested a few more hours in finding a good balance between the RGB and narrowband components for the final image."

Image Details:
Celestron RASA 8 f/2
Celestron Motorfocus
EQ6-R Pro
ZWO ASI 2600 MC Pro (Gain 100, Offset 18, -10°)
RGB: 576 × 60″ (9h 36′)
TS 2600 MP (Gain 100, Offset 200, -10°)
Baader H-Alpha Highspeed 3.5nm: 202 × 120″ (6h 44')
Total: 16h 20'
Bortle 5 (19.50 SQM)
N.I.N.A., Guiding: ASI 120MM & PHD2
Astropixelprocessor, Photoshop, Pixinsight

Image Credit: Markus Horn
Release Date: Nov. 7, 2024

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