Stellar Shot of the Week: December 24, 2021
"The Pacman Nebula in HOO" - by Douglas Struble

Congratulations to this week's Stellar Shot, which is really a runner-up to our StellarShot of the Year which you will see next week! We were all on the verge of these two, and in this particular case it's an image that we found more visually pleasing than almost any other we've seen this year. And it's arguably one of the best PacMan Nebula images anyone here has EVER seen. Douglas really went above and beyond with 27.3hr of data captured using his Stellarvue SVX102T-R and a ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro. Given the light pollution he faces outside of Detroit this is particularly impressive work, and demonstrates not only the power of ultra-narrow 3nm filters but also of Douglas' processing acumen. The gas is as smooth as silk, the stars are gorgeous little pinpoints, and the color pallet could not be any more visually pleasing. The dark sections of the nebula are brought out perfectly as well, with enough contrast to pop despite no apparent reduction to the details in the highlighted regions. This should be no surprise as Douglas' images really never disappoint, but great work by him and thank you to Douglas and everyone else for your submissions throughout the year! Make sure to check out his complete catalog of work too, which can be found on his astrobin page under the username "dugstruble."

For those just seeing our StellarShot entries for the first time, we would like to invite anyone else shooting with a Stellarvue scope to submit your shots any time by email (using mail@stellarvue.com) or by tagging them with #stellarvue and #stellarshot. We love featuring work by all levels of images and with scopes old and new. For now we hope everyone has a great holiday weekend, and check back next week for our top shot of 2021!

Imaging Details:

• Imaging telescope: Stellarvue SVX102T-R
• Imaging camera: ZWO ASI1600MM-Cool
• Mount: Orion Atlas Pro AZ/EQ-G
• Guide scope: Stellarvue 50mm Guidescope
• Guide camera: ASI224MC
• Software: Photoshop CC, PHD2, Sequence Generator Pro, PixInsight
• Filters: Astrodon OIII 3nm, Astronomik Ha 6nm 1.25''
• Accessories: ZWO 8x 1.25" Filter Wheel (EFW), QHYCCD PoleMaster, Hotech 2" SCA Field Flattener