Stellar Shot of the Week: January 21, 2022
"WR 134 with surrounding shell" - by Jim Esch
Congratulations to this week's official selection for the Stellar Shot of the Week, which goes to Jim Esch and his absolutely stunning capture of the lesser-known WR134 region. WR 134 is a variable Wolf-Rayet star located about 6,000 light years away in Cygnus. It is surrounded by a faint bubble nebula blown by the intense radiation and fast wind from the star. The Wolf-Rayet star itself is about five times the radius of our Sun, but due to a temperature over 63,000 K it is 400,000 times as luminous as the Sun. Jim's processing does an absolutely incredible job bringing out not only the cloud/shell around WR134, but also the surrounding nebulosity. His color pallet is the orange/blue style we've come to really enjoy, and despite being very vivid the image never feels over-processed or overly saturated. The stars all look nice and sharp, and the detail you can see at both large and small scales is really impressicve. Great work by Jim, and please make sure to check out his Astrobin profile under the username "Astrojim11" (www.astrobin.com/users/Astrojim11/)
If anyone else shooting with a Stellarvue would like to share your work we would love to feature it as well! Please submit your shots any time by email (using mail@stellarvue.com) or by tagging them with #stellarvue and #stellarshot.
Imaging Details:
- Integration Time: 21.0 hours
- Imagine Telescope: Stellarvue SVX102T
- Camera: ZWO ASI2600MM-P
- Focuser: Optec FTX30
- Guide Scope: AstroTech 72EDII
- Guide Camera: ZWO ASI290MM
- Filters: Astrodon 36mm with exposures 114 Ha, 219 OIII, 61 SII (at 3 minutes each); 25 RGB (at one minute each).
- Software: SGP, PHD2, PixInsight
