V1769 Cyg — WR 134

Target & processing

V1769 Cyg (WR 134) appears as a bright, blue-white star in the constellation Cygnus, visible in the northern hemisphere during late summer. This Wolf-Rayet star is characterized by its extremely hot and luminous surface, marking it as one of the most massive stars known to date. As seen from Earth, V1769 Cyg occupies a prominent position within the Cygnus constellation's eastern quadrants. Located approximately 6,020 light-years away, this stellar entity dominates its surroundings with an intense radiance.

This one is a tough one. This is the target that asked the most work so far. Although the Ha is relatively easy, the OIII is so faint, it's a real challenge. First in acquistion, as in Bortle 9 it needs dozens of hours just on OIII to reveal the faint details of the whole bubble, and then in processing, where the top part of the bubble is pretty bright, but the filaments around are very faint.

To solve those issues, I went a couple of nights in a Bortle 4 sky to get the OIII (that's why the total integration time is not that high, but I probably would have need 40 to 50h if I decided to stay in Bortle 9). This was my first nomad experience, and it was very nice (although I had to throw a whole night because of unexpected fog where I was located).

As for the processing, I use some HDRMultiscaleTransform to try to bring the brighter and fainter part a bit closer in terms of intensity. I also used the Generalized Hyperbolic Stretch (GHS) to reduce a bit the contrast between those two parts. It took me 60h+ to process. I did more than a dozen of version, never satisfied. I tried different color palette, different processing, but it was never good enough. Not enough details, processing too harsh, clipped gas, etc... It tooks weeks before I got a processing that I deemed 'okay'.