Dusty blue wisps stand opposed to the vast red clouds of hydrogen in the
Monoceros constellation.
Dreyer's nebula (IC447) comprises multiple reflection nebula where hot blue stars illuminate the background dust and reflect the light back to you and me.
The
Cone Nebula shines atop the
Christmas Tree Cluster (NGC2264) and is located approximately 2,300 light years from Earth.
Barnard 39 is a dark nebula, comprised of cosmic dust that sits between us and the background emissions, blocking the light.
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This image was shot with a monochrome camera using separate R, G, and B filters. No luminance or narrowband filters were used. No changes to saturation were made either. I just used simple, smooth, s-curves in Pixinsight to adjust contrast. This image was difficult to balance with the massive number of stars (over 100,000 stars counted in the original framing), and the combination of reflection, emission, and dak nebula scattered throughout the image. I chose to keep the stars prominent to not destroy the cluster of orange/yellow stars at the top center. Processing was further complicated by issues with drizzle integration. I was pulling out more faint detail from the non-drizzled data and after numerous tests with different drizzle settings I decided to simply go without drizzle for this project. The focus on RGB seems to have resulted in more color in the dusty regions around Dreyer's Nebula.
Hover over the image at the top for a starless version. Click it for a detailed view.
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