By Lorraine Boyd | 2025-10-01
Sharpness 2-124 in SHO with RGB stars
On 09/21/2025 by Imran Badr | Website | San Jose, CA, USA
Sharpless 2-124 (Sh2-124) is a faint emission nebula located in the constellation Cygnus at an estimated distance of ~8,500 light-years. Spanning nearly 20 arcminutes across the sky, it is often referred to as the “Almost Nothing Nebula.” This name not only reflects its extremely low surface brightness, which makes it exceedingly difficult to capture in detail, but also the fact that very little scientific research has been conducted on it compared to other nebulae in Cygnus. The object glows primarily in hydrogen-alpha with faint contributions from doubly ionized oxygen and sulfur, requiring narrowband imaging to reveal its hidden structure. Because of its faintness and its position within a dense star field, deep exposures and highly meticulous processing are necessary to uncover its wispy filaments and dark dust lanes, making Sh2-124 one of the most elusive and rarely imaged objects in the Sharpless catalogue.
More details can be seen at: https://www.deepspacebackyard.com/sh2-124
Equipment:
Telescope: Celestron 9.25EdgeHD with 0.7x reducer
Mount: Sky-Watcher EQ6RPro
Camera: ZWO 2600MM Pro (cooled to -10 deg-Celcius)
Guide camera: ZWO 174mm Mini
Guiding Accessory: Celestron Off-Axis Guider
Imaging sessions Automation: ZWO ASIAir Mini
Filters: Antlia 2.5nm Hydrogen-alpha, Sulfur-2, Oxygen-3 and V-Pro Red, Green, Blue
Light frames:
Hydrogen-alpha: 17h10m (102x600s frames)
Oxygen-3: 34h40m (208x600s frames)
Sulfur-2: 26h30m (159x600s frames)
Red,Green,Blue: 1h30m (30x60s frames on each filter for stars)
Calibration frames:
Dark: 30 frames
Flat: 30 frames on each filter
Dark-Flats: 30 each on each filter
Total Integration: 79h50m
I processed this image in PixInsight and Photoshop. I used WBPP script in PixInsight to calibrate, Register and stack light frames. As a result I got one master file for each Ha, S2, O3, R, G and B filter. For each master file, I removed background and sky glow using Dynamic Background Extraction. After that, I sharpened each Ha, S2 and O3 master using BlurXterminator and denoised using NoiseXterminator. After that I removed stars from those masters using StarXterminator. I then stretched each Ha, S2 and O3 master using Generalized Hyperbolic Strech. I then combined S2, Ha, and O3 using Channel combination in SHO palette. After that after several steps of further stretching, histogram adjustments abd curves transformation in both PixInsight and Photoshop, I arrived at final starless version.
For stars, I first combined R, G and B masters using channel combination and them removed background sky glow using Automatic Background Extraction in PixInsight. After that, I corrected the stars using Blurxterminator and then did color calibration using Spectrophotometric Color Calibration. Then I lightly stretched rgb image using Histrigram linear stretching. After that, I adjusted saturation of rgb stars only image and added that to the starless nebula image using PixelMath.