The Flaming Star Nebula is an Emission and Reflection Nebula surrounding the bluish, irregular variable star AE Aurigae (a magnitude +6 star), located near the constellation Auriga and in close proximity to the constellation Orion.  The Flaming Star Nebula is designated IC-405 (Index Catalogue), and also identified as Caldwell 31 or Sharpless (SH2-229).  An emission nebula is a nebula formed of ionized gases that emit light of various wavelengths. The most common source of ionization is high-energy ultraviolet photons emitted from a nearby hot star, and likely in this case, a high HII region (hydrogen gas), hence the deep red color in the photo, where star formation is likely taking place and young, massive stars are the source of the ionizing photons.  Whereas, a reflection nebula are clouds of interstellar dust which might reflect the light of a nearby star or stars. The energy from the nearby stars is insufficient to ionize the gas of the nebula to create an emission nebula, but is enough to give sufficient scattering to make the dust visible.  This is the blue/purple region near the center star AE Aurigae.

The nebula lies ~1500 light years from Earth and is estimated to be 5 light years across.

These pictures were shot with the ZWO Dual Narrowband filter which is great for heavy light pollution areas (like mine), bright moonlight, and allows light transmission in two main frequency regions:
1.     Hydrogen Alpha (Ha) (red) at 656.3 nm with a bandwidth of 15nm
2.     Oxygen III (Oiii) (blue) at 500.7 nm with a bandwidth of 35nm

This image was processed as a standard one shot color image, as there was very little light in the blue and green spectrums.  I was able to emphasize the blue/ purple elements using some masks for the final picture, to bring out the reflection nebula portion. 
These images that make up this picture were collected on November 16, 2022. The moon was basically a half moon setting a little after midnight (~50% light reflection).  I shot over 120 5 minute images that night, but about 40 of them weren’t good due to power lines, trees, etc (tough in my backyard sometimes).

My setup:·       
Mount: EQ6R-Pro·       
Telescope: Williams Optics 81 mm Zenithstar doublet·       
ZWO-ASI224MC color camera for guiding with the Zenithstar guide·       
Hotech Corporation 2” Field Flattener·       
ZWO ASI2600MC Pro;
Camera cooled to -10 deg C, with ZWO Duo-Band Narrowband Light Pollution Reduction Filter·       
Bortle-9 – South Los Angeles shot from my backyard·       
Integration Time: 6 Hours 15 Minutes; Lights (75 @ 300 seconds); Darks (30 @ 300 seconds); Flats (30) & Dark Flats (20) – Lights were captured on November 16th, nearly a half moon (about 50.5% moonlight)·       

Image Processing: Pixinsight – Using videos from multiple youtube teachers and website.  @ChaoticNebula, @Cosgrove’sCosmos, @ViewintoSpace, @EnteringintoSpace, @PaulymanAstro, @Lukomatico – Lots of great on-line teachers/examples.·       
Incorporated Russell Croman’s new BlurXTerminator – Amazing product  

Here is my simplified Pixinsight workflow that I have been tailoring over the last 4 months learning PixInsight and watching some really amazing people teach how the tools work.
1.      WBPP with 2x drizzle (Including Cosmetic Correction) – Includes first dynamic crop
2.      Perform a Linear Fit (with Green as a reference)
3.      Extract a Luminance Image
4.      Extract R, G, & B images (saved for future use – Used Blue to create unique mask)
5.      DBE 1st Div  and 2nd Subtraction for both OCS and Luminance images
6.      OCS Image – Linear Processing
a.      Used Autocolor Script – Background Neutralization and Color Calibration
b.      SpectroPhotometric Color Calibration (SPCC)                                                        
i.      Didn’t use SCNR afterwords – Using Bill Blanshan’s Script (@AnotherAstroChannel) – Didn’t care for the result this time
c.       BlurXterminator – With star reduction of 0.2 and Halo -0.1                                                        
i.      Used PSF Image script to find the best PSF diameter (plugged in manually)
d.      StarXterminator – Generated Star Image and Upscreen Stars                                                        
i.      Had to repeat the Star image because something messed up the OCS Stars didn’t look right
e.      Small amount of Clone stamp to clean up the bright star halos left behind
f.        NoiseXterminator – 85%
7.      Luminance Image Flow – Linear Processing
a.      BlurXterminator – With star reduction of 0.2 and Halo -0.1 – Checked Luminance Only                                                        
i.      Used PSF Image script to find the best PSF diameter (plugged in manually)
b.      StarXterminator – Generated Star Image and Upscreen Stars                                                        
i.      Discarded the stars
c.       Small amount of Clone stamp to clean up the bright star halos left behind
d.      NoiseXterminator – 85%
8.      Stretched with 3 different methods and compared to see what I liked the best                                                        
i.      GHS_Manual (I stretched); GHS_Script (Bill Blanshan’s script); and Ez-Suite Soft Stretch                                                      
ii.      I then used Histogram_Transformation tool to get them all to the same background darkness                                                     
iii.      Picked GHS_Manual as the best for the remainder of processing (OCS & Luminance)
9.      Non-Linear Flow
a.      Luminance Image                                                        
i.      Additional Sharpening using Multiscale_Linear_Transformation (MLT) and UnsharpMask (USM) & Pixelmath blend (Nebula Masked)                                                      
ii.      Used Red Mask from OCS image to cleanup the background and get rid of noise
b.      OCS Image                                                        
i.      Using Luminance Image as mask1.      Curves Transformation to darken the background                                                      
ii.      Using Color Masks – Increase Red coloration (along with saturation)
1.      Use the Blue channel all of the way through the process to create a specific blue mask for the wispy
a.      After stretching I used range selection to reduce down to just the wispy portion
b.      Curves Transformation to increase blue, slightly reduce red                                                     
iii.      Convolution in preparation for merger
c.       LRGB Combination – Merge Luminance w/ OCS                                                        
i.      Adjust the lightness to 0.53 for best results
d.      Exponential Transformation (w/ Luminance Mask) – Increase nebulosity brightness (just slightly)
e.      Local Histogram Equalization (w/ Luminance Mask) – Basically increasing contrast                                                        
i.      Large Structures – 150 Kernel – 1.3 Contrast                                                      
ii.      Small Structures – 50 Kernel – 1.3 Contrast
f.        Final Color Adjustments (w/ Luminance Mask)                                                        
i.      Darken Background                                                      
ii.      Improve Nebula – Increase a little of surrounding hydrogen cloud (red)
g.      Dark Structure Enhance Script
h.      Noise Xterminator 90%
10.   Stars (OCS)
a.      Stretched with Histogram_Transformation to a smaller number of star that were appealing to my eye                                                        
i.      Used a star mask to try increase size of main bigger stars (didn’t work well)
b.      Small Curves Transformation for Saturation
c.       Used a formula to put screened stars back (@PaulymanAstro)
11.   Final Color adjustments (very minor)
12.   Cropped picture & Annotated with my signature
13.   Output multiple picture types