Barnard 29 from my Jade Observatory

In 2025 I captured LRGB images of Barnard 29 from my own Jade Observatory. Barnard 29 refers to a dark nebula located in the constellation Auriga, part of Edward E. Barnard’s catalog of obscuring interstellar dust clouds. These dark nebulae are regions of cold, dense molecular material that block the light of background stars, appearing as irregular voids and lanes against the rich Milky Way star field.

Within the same field lies the planetary nebula Kohoutek 2-1, a faint and compact object that benefits greatly from high-resolution processing. To enhance its fine structure, I applied 2× drizzling during the integration process, improving the effective image scale and revealing subtle details in the nebula that would otherwise be lost. The combination of a foreground dark nebula and a distant planetary nebula in a single field provides an interesting contrast between early and late stages of stellar evolution, as well as between obscuring and emitting interstellar material.

Data calibration, registration and the final processing was done with PixInsight. The result was as follows:

In the image, you can also see the planetary nebula Kohoutek 2-1, which I will show in a 200% crop.

The images were taken with the following equipment:

• Date: 2025
• Location: Varel, Germany
• Telescope: 6″ Newton ohne Namen
• Focal length [mm]: 450
• Focal ratio: 3
• Mount: Skywatcher EQ8
• Camera: Lacerta DeepSkyPro 2600
• Filter: L:R:G:B
• Exposure time [min]: 555:185:185:185
• Resolution: 1.72″/px