Photo of the Week for March 15, 2019
As the equipment and techniques used by astrophotographers continue to improve, previously obscure deep-sky objects and unfamiliar catalogs are becoming better known. This faint cloud of nebulosity, located in southern Auriga, is listed in the Sharpless catalog as Sh2-234. The bright, yellow star above centre is 5th-magnitude Phi Aurigae; the left side of the frame is north.
Marc Ricard produced this image by combining 470 minutes of RGB data obtained from Oak Heights, Ontario, with H-alpha sub-frames totalling 580 minutes, captured from his backyard in Pointe-Claire, Quebec. He used a QSI 683wsg CCD camera and a Takahashi FSQ-106ED f/5 apochromatic refractor telescope.
