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This is a very strange object. The central 8.8 magnitude star is T Tauri, and is orbited by a patchy torus of dark clouds. These cause not only the star to vary in brightness, but the nebula changes its appearance as well, much like Hubbles Variable Nebula in Monoceros. The orange class K0IIe star in the middle casts a ruddy glow to the nebula itself and the surrounding shells of dust. This deep image reveals two outer shells not seen normally in images of this object. An arc to the upper right, and a more spherical halo around the primary star.

As an added bonus, the 16.4 magnitude asteroid Farra was captured in this image, currently 2AU from the Earth. The RGB coloration is from each color frame recording it in a slightly different position as it moved across the frame.

Processing: A very noisy image was tamed with SGBNR. A Synthetic L channel was made by summing RGB components.

Instrument:  12.5" f/5 Home made Newtonian
Platform:  Astrophysics 1200 QMD
CCD Camera:  SBIG ST8i NABG
Guider: SBIG ST4
Exposure:  LRGB = 80:20:20:40 (RGB Binned 2x2)
RGB Combine Ratio:  1: .8: 1.2
Filters:  RGB Tricolor
Location:  Payson, Arizona
Elevation:  5150 ft.
Sky:  Seeing FWHM = 3.8 arcsec (Maxim DL - 10min subframe), Transparency 8/10
Outside Temperature:  5 C
CCD Temperature:  -20 C
Processing Tools:  Maxim DL, Photoshop, AIP4WIN, PW Pro, RW Debloomer.

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