The Lobster Claw Nebula, also known as Sharpless 157 (Sh2-157), is an emission nebula in the Cassiopeia constellation, located about 11050 light-years from Earth. A large HII area, which is ring-shaped by the stellar winds of multiple giant stars, including the luminous and relatively young Wolf-Rayed star WR 57, makes up the nebula's primarily yellow portion.
Lyn's Bright Nebula 537 is the tiny bright area to the left and above the image's centre (LBN537 or Sharpless 157a). Highly ionised oxygen (OIII) and other gases are the principal components of the blue regions in the right portion of the image.
Lyn's Bright Nebula 537 is the tiny bright area to the left and above the image's centre (LBN537 or Sharpless 157a). Highly ionised oxygen (OIII) and other gases are the principal components of the blue regions in the right portion of the image.
This photo was taken with 3-minute sub-exposures and totalling 2 hours. This was the first original photo taken with my RASA, ignoring the 2 heart nebulas (testing with easy comparison as the old exposures were still on the memory stick, so could slew to the same spot) and the M16 - Eagle Nebula.
I have recently done the bubble nebula also, but being my second night, I was a little excited and couldn't choose what to take a photo of. Ended up with the Bubble Nebula and Lobster Claw Nebula as my previous version wasn't as good and never brought the detail out on the bubble as much as I wanted. I was still testing the exposure timings and this one was done with 3-minute exposures. You can see the bloating in some of the stars! 3-minutes is far too long for the RASA on these types of targets.
While the Bubble Nebula is the better-known object, the Lobster Claw Nebula is still a sight to see. One I nearly missed as this target doesn't appear on Stellarium and can be overlooked quite easily.
I have recently done the bubble nebula also, but being my second night, I was a little excited and couldn't choose what to take a photo of. Ended up with the Bubble Nebula and Lobster Claw Nebula as my previous version wasn't as good and never brought the detail out on the bubble as much as I wanted. I was still testing the exposure timings and this one was done with 3-minute exposures. You can see the bloating in some of the stars! 3-minutes is far too long for the RASA on these types of targets.
While the Bubble Nebula is the better-known object, the Lobster Claw Nebula is still a sight to see. One I nearly missed as this target doesn't appear on Stellarium and can be overlooked quite easily.
- Scope – Celestron RASA 8
- Mount - Skywatcher EQ6 R Pro
- Guide scope – ZWO 30mm
- Guide Camera – ZWO ASI 120mm mini
- Main Camera – ZWO Asi 533mc Pro
- Control box – ZWO ASIAIR Pro
- Filter – IDAS NBZ Nebula Booster
- Starizona Filter drawer next to the camera sensor
- Fox Halo 96k power bank
- Dew heater with its own power bank on the guide scope
- All the data was stacked with DeepSkyStacker and Processed in Pixinsight. (Other software is available which is free and will is linked in the information tab)