Skies By Africa

Images of the Heavens By Eric Africa

The "Fish on the Platter" Nebula


Fish on the Platter
FishOnthePlatter - Click on thumbnails below to view larger image. Opens in a new window.
HaRGB HOO Pseudo-SHO

While I am familiar with the Tulip Nebula (SH2-101, the brightest, flower-shaped nebula in this image), a friend alerted me to an object in this field of view identified in Stellarium as "Fish on the Platter nebula". I wasn't sure what object might look like this moniker, so I aimed a wide-field imaging setup at this area and took this image.

While I don't see a fish in this image in any way, shape or form, this region, which lies in Cygnus the Swan does show off a fascinating region of ionized gas and dark dust lanes. In addition to the conspicuous Tulip Nebula, this region also captures an object that I had just "discovered" while browsing image repositories such as Astrobin: WR 134, the beautiful, round bluish nebula at the lower right center of this image.

"WR 134 is a variable Wolf-Rayet star located around 6,000 light years away from Earth in the constellation of Cygnus, surrounded by a faint bubble nebula blown by the intense radiation and fast wind from the star. It is five times the radius of the sun, but due to a temperature over 63,000 K it is 400,000 times as luminous as the Sun." - Wikipedia

SH2-101 is the 101st entry in Stewart Sharpless' catalog of HII (ionized hydrogen) regions. In researching this object, I just found out that Cygnus X-1, one of the first suspected black holes, is located close to SH2-101! My image is relatively shallow (two hours total!) so I was not able to capture a bow shock visible in other images; this bow shock is a direct result of a relativistic jet of matter shooting into interstellar space from the suspected black holes. I definitely need a deeper exposure of this object!

 
Constellation: Cygnus
When Visible: July - December
Distance: 6,000 Light-years
Dates:
August 26 and September 27, 2025
Location: West Chester, Oh
Exposure Details:

RGB: 12 x 5 Minutes binned 1x1
Ha/OIII: 6 x 10 Minutes binned 1x1
 
Equipment Used:  William Optics RedCat 51 on a ZWO AM5N mount. ZWO ASI-2600MC Pro camera with 5 x 50mm filter wheel and Antlia filters. Externally guided with a ZWO ASI715MC camera through a SVBONY 30mm F/4 Mini-guidescope.
 
Acquisition Software/Hardware : ZWO ASI Air
Processing Software:  PixInsight, Photoshop CS5, IrFanView