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SVX102T-R - Crescent Nebula

August 11, 2026 - Douglas Struble
SVX102T-R - Crescent Nebula - Douglas Struble
SVX102T-R - Crescent Nebula - Douglas Struble

Douglas J. Struble captured this magnificent image of the Crescent Nebula (NGC 6888) in Cygnus with his SVX102T Raptor and other instruments. This object is an emission nebula that rests approximately 5,000 light-years away from Earth. Its formation is the result of fast stellar winds from the Wolf-Rayet star WR 137. These winds collide with and energize much slower moving wind ejected by the star somewhere around 250,000 years ago.


According to Douglas:

“I started doing astrophotography in 2016 and of course NGC 6888 (Crescent Nebula) was one of my first targets, as it is bright and pretty easy to do well. I decided to go really deep with integration time on it this time just to see how much fainter detail I could pull out. This will probably be the last time I attempt this object. The majority of integration was captured this year but did add on data from previous years. As with any object, you do reach a point in capturing with diminishing returns. It was a bit of an ordeal bringing all these data sets together.”


Other Designations: Crescent Nebula, NGC 6888, Sharpless 105, Caldwell 27


Details:

Telescopes:

  • Stellarvue SVX102T-R
  • Explore Scientific APO 165mm FPL-53 CF 3.0" FT
  • Explore Scientific ED APO 152mm f/8 FCD1 ED

Focusers: MoonLite CFL 2.5 inch large format refractor focusers

Field Flattener: Hotech 2" SCA field flattener (SCA-FFT58)

Cameras:

  • ZWO ASI1600MM Pro
  • ZWO ASI183MM Pro

Mounts:

  • Astro-Physics Mach1 GTO
  • Orion Atlas Pro AZ/EQ-G

Filters:

  • Astrodon H-alpha 5nm 1.25"
  • Astrodon OIII 3nm 1.25"
  • Astronomik Deep-Sky Blue 1.25"
  • Astronomik Deep-Sky Green 1.25"
  • Astronomik Deep-Sky Red 1.25"
  • Astronomik H-alpha CCD 6nm 1.25"
  • Astronomik OIII CCD 6nm 1.25"

Accessories:

  • QHYCCD PoleMaster
  • ZWO EFW 8 x 1.25″ / 31mm

Software:

  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Main Sequence Software Sequence Generator Pro (SGP)
  • Open PHD Guiding Project PHD2
  • Pleiades Astrophoto PixInsight

Integration Time: 79h 55′

Bortle Dark-Sky Scale: 8.00

Location: Taylor, MI (EST) USA


*For more details and an in-depth look at this image, visit Douglas’s AstroBin.


References:

Wikipedia contributors. (2025, November 21). Crescent Nebula. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescent_Nebula

AstroBin. (n.d.). AstroBin. https://app.astrobin.com/i/b76o5a