The Fetus Nebula from a Backyard (NGC 7008)

The Fetus Nebula — NGC 7008 — is a planetary nebula in the constellation Cygnus, about 2,800 light-years away: the glowing shell thrown off by a dying, Sun-like star, lit by the hot white dwarf left at its heart. In about five billion years, our own Sun will do the same.

This one I captured from the back garden over three cold nights, then took through the full processing pipeline — sorting, stacking, and post — into an HOO image.

Watch the full walkthrough

Acquisition

• Scope: 8″ f/5 Newtonian (1000 mm)
• Camera: ToupTek ATR533M — cooled mono
• Filters: narrowband Hα + OIII (HOO)
• Guiding: guide scope + camera, PHD2 (~0.84″ RMS on the best night)
• Control: N.I.N.A. / KStars + Ekos on a mini PC
• Subs: 50× Hα + 39× OIII @ 300 s — ~7.4 h over 3 nights

Processing

• Sort & cull every frame in my own tool
• Stack each filter in Siril (calibrate, register, integrate)
• Crop → background extraction → SPCC colour calibration
• Combine to HOO → stretch → final curves

The 40-second version

The full ~17-minute walkthrough — the object, the gear, the capture, and the complete processing — is on YouTube. If you would like to support this work, you will find me on Patreon as Bruno astro husky.

⚠️ The narration voice and the on-screen presenter (“Tara”) are AI-generated. The astrophotography is entirely my own.

Clear skies. 🌌