Each year, I take a one-week escape with friends to the south of France, soaking in the tranquil local lifestyle and marveling at the night skies. This image is one of the first captures from our trip—a particularly challenging target: Simeis 147. It’s a composite of narrowband OIII and H-alpha data, blended with RGB stars for added depth and color. The biggest hurdle was achieving very precise calibrated data, given how incredibly faint the signal was.
Simeis 147, also known as the Spaghetti Nebula, is a vast supernova remnant located between the constellations Taurus and Auriga. It spans about 3 degrees of the sky—roughly six times the width of the full Moon—and lies around 3,000 light-years from Earth. Its delicate, filamentary structure is the aftermath of a stellar explosion that occurred approximately 40,000 years ago. At its core, a fast-spinning neutron star, PSR J0538+2817, remains as the remnant’s stellar ghost.
Telescope: William Optics Redcat 51
Camera: ZWO ASI2600MM
Mount: iOptron CEM40
Exposure: 13 hours (70x300s Ha + 70x300s O3 + 3x12x120s RGB)
Date: September 2025
Location: Southern Alps, France
Bart Delsaert - Astrophotography 
Great image