144P/Kushida is a periodic comet discovered in January, 1994, by Yoshio Kushida at the Yatsugatake South Base Observatory in Japan. This was the first comet discovery of 1994 and his second discovery within a month. It last came to perihelion on 25 January 2024, and brightened to about magnitude 10.
The low inclination to the ecliptic suggested to Nakano that the comet could be a short period type.
Using over 300 positions obtained between January 7 and July 9, 1994 Patrick Rocher refined the calculations done by Syuichi Nakano... and determined the perihelion distance as 1.367 AU, and the orbital period as 7.366 years.
The closest approach to the Sun was 25 January, at a distance of 1.40 AU. He is now getting far from us.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/144P/Kushida

Kushida Orbit
https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/tools/sbdb_lookup.html#/?sstr=144P&view=VOPC


Sh2 254-258 Complex
is a HII Ionized region in the Orion constellation. IC 2162 is situated close to the celestial equator and, as such, it is at least partly visible from both hemispheres in certain times of the year.
Object type:  Emission nebula
Constellation:  Orion
IC 2162 (= Sh 2-255) is the brightest part of an emission nebula complex in constellation Orion. This nebula complex consists of following Sharpless objects: Sh 2-254, Sh 2-255 (= IC 2162), Sh 2-256, Sh 2-257, Sh 2-258

The Sh2-254 region is a complex of HII regions located about 8000 light years away from the solar system on the Perseus Arm, corresponding to the southernmost part of the Gemini OB1 association, in the constellation of Orion; However, since the distance of this OB association is not known with absolute precision, being variable depending on the estimates between 1500 and 2000 parsecs, the real interaction of the region with this association is not certain

The region is made up of some clouds which optically appear spheroidal in appearance and apparently unrelated to each other, although they are very close to each other; the brightest components are Sh2-255 and Sh2-257, to which is added Sh2-254, the largest and from which the complex takes its name, and other smaller clouds. Star formation phenomena are present within the clouds of the region, as evidenced by the presence of various sources of infrared radiation and some masers.

The brightest components are Sh2-256, also known as IC 2162, and Sh2-255, two spheroidal clouds easily detectable in long-exposure astronomical photos taken at medium-high magnification. The surrounding nebulous regions, such as the extended Sh2-254, which constitutes the westernmost end of the complex, appear much weaker and more dispersed, while the smaller clouds, Sh2-257 and Sh2-258, are difficult to identify.  https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regione_di_Sh2-254
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Interesting studies on regard this complex

 'A CO and Far-Infrared Study of the S254--S258 Region' Heyer, Mark H. ; Snell, Ronald L. ; Morgan, James ; Schloerb, F. Peter
https://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pdf/1989ApJ...346..220H

'Evidence for a Massive Protocluster in S255N' Cyganowski, C. J. ; Brogan, C. L. search by orcid ; Hunter, T. R. search by orcid
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1086/518740/pdf

'The rotation and structure of the Galaxy beyond the solar circle. I. Photometry and spectroscopy of 276 stars in 45 H II regions and other young stellar groups toward the galactic anticentre.'  Moffat, A. F. J. ; Fitzgerald, M. P. ; Jackson, P. D.
https://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pdf/1979A%26AS...38..197M
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Once Maurizio finish with the 12P Pons-Brooks session, he started another on C-P13 Olbers comet but  unsuccessful as the comet was down on the sunset he could only did 11 shots which 6 are barely usable.  Then he moved to the next, 144P Kushida that bring a nice surprise because was beside an object Maurizio never saw before and got all exited.  He started taking photographs of this comet, the second properly of that night (see description here https://www.astrobin.com/f5skw7/ ) , pass 9pm doing position tests until he framed the comet better with the Sharpless complex and then did a continuous session.
A side note: Maurizio went out on March 18th to take more data from the Sh2 254 complex and once he placed all the gear and want to begin the session the only pine tree in the area was in the direction of the Sh2 Murphy Law...he did other targets of course but that was very funny!.

Processing this comet with a nebula next to it leads to changing the type of worflow I usually do.

It was done in DSS stack star alignment in which the comet appears blurred.
From this stack the star base and the starless version of the Sh2 254 complex were obtained.
Sh2 was worked after eliminating the comet in that layer, trying to obtain the details of it in the best possible way with the limited information obtained in just two hours.

After, I worked with another starless version, where all the Sh2 objects and another small nebula around were eliminated to leave the comet blurred and thus obtain the base of only stars.

Then proceeded to make another single-comet stack in DSS where the few close scratches that were there were cleaned up. A very faint short elongation of the tail can be seen from the comet, but in truth it is almost non-existent visually, while the green color of the head is notable.

Later, with masks in each layer of the work, the comet was combined with the Shrapless complex and in another layer the version of only stars for obtain a final image.

In the full frame you can see how the objects look and being so small, a fairly important crop was made to better visualize the Sh 2 complex and the comet.

All in all, this tiny visiting comet allowed us to know about the Sharpless complex, which in my first impression resembles peony flowers a lot.



Thank you for visiting us and leaving your impressions.
Everyone have CS,

Processed March 2024

https://twitter.com/AstroOtus/status/1774044446742515941/photo/1