Horsehead and Flame in Orion in Ha (weine006)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Orion (Ori) · Contains: 48 Ori · 50 Ori) · Flame Nebula · IC 431 · IC 432 · IC 434 · IC 435 · NGC 2023 · NGC 2024 · Orion B · The star Alnitak (ζ Ori · The star σ Ori

Horsehead and Flame in Orion in Ha, weine006

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Horsehead and Flame in Orion in Ha

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Horsehead and Flame in Orion in Ha

While working on a HRGB version of Barnard 33, I decided to complete processing on just the 8 hours of Ha. I wanted to highlight the swirling dust clouds below the Horsehead (towards the East) which, in most images, is too dark to show details. Managing the dark bottom half of the image with the brighter upper half was a challenge met with several masks. I tried to preserve, at the top, the delicate bands of Ha signal rippled by the intense magnetic fields generated by the hot stars in Sigma Orionis.

For the Horsehead itself, I learned something new. Compare the pillar of gas/dust in the Elephant Trunk nebula to the Horsehead. The Elephant Trunk is mostly a series of solid columns on top of each other. The Horsehead is also a column but has two smaller lateral columns (head and mane). The lateral columns are present because the Horsehead dust cloud is rotating in space from left to right (very, very slowly!) The resulting centrifugal force has split the column into its present appearance with just faint tendrils of dust still connecting the two lateral columns to the central column.

I also highlighted the Flame's dust structure. It's made out of the same stuff as the Horsehead but stellar radiation has carved it differently. On either side of the Flame, NGC 2023 and IC 432 nebulae glow softly like lanterns.

I decided against a starless image; the stars are from RGB luminance data.

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Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	8948305
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
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Horsehead and Flame in Orion in Ha

Horsehead and Flame in Orion in Ha

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Horsehead and Flame in Orion in Ha

Horsehead and Flame in Orion in Ha

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