Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Orion (Ori)  ·  Contains:  IC 2159  ·  NGC 2174  ·  NGC 2175  ·  Sh2-252
NGC 2174 (Monkey Head Nebula), Jonathan Piques
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NGC 2174 (Monkey Head Nebula)

NGC 2174 (Monkey Head Nebula), Jonathan Piques
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NGC 2174 (Monkey Head Nebula)

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Description

NGC 2174, also known as the Monkey Head Nebula, lies about 6,400 light years away in the Orion constellation, somewhat near the head of Orion. This emission nebula earns its distinctive shape from the hot, newborn stars near the center emitting ultraviolet light that eats at the large cloud of surrounding hydrogen gas.

For this image, I again opted for bi-color, as both the hydrogen alpha and Oiii signals were quite strong. The oxygen was so strong, in fact, that I only gathered about 4 hours' worth of data on it, which is fairly low for me. Processing on this was fun, as there was so much detail to be gleaned from the many different structures present within the nebula.

Comments

Revisions

    NGC 2174 (Monkey Head Nebula), Jonathan Piques
    Original
    NGC 2174 (Monkey Head Nebula), Jonathan Piques
    B
    NGC 2174 (Monkey Head Nebula), Jonathan Piques
    C
    NGC 2174 (Monkey Head Nebula), Jonathan Piques
    D
    NGC 2174 (Monkey Head Nebula), Jonathan Piques
    E
    NGC 2174 (Monkey Head Nebula), Jonathan Piques
    F
    NGC 2174 (Monkey Head Nebula), Jonathan Piques
    I
  • Final
    NGC 2174 (Monkey Head Nebula), Jonathan Piques
    J

B

Description: Pulled back on the brightness a bit for a slightly more natural look.

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C

Description: Brought down the core in brightness further still, in order to reveal more detail in the center as well as show the nice contrast with the broader dust envelope.

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D

Description: Fixed star colors

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E

Description: Adjusted the background: black point was too low.

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I

Description: Did a complete re-process, using a technique gleaned from Barry Wilson: creating a starless version, working on the nebulosity separately, and then adding the stars back in via Ha as luminance. FAR better result, particularly with star colors and shapes, and I was able to bring out more detail in the body of the nebula. I was never really happy with this one until now. It could still be improved, of course, but it's a significant leap forward over the prior version.

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J

Description: Completely re-did it from scratch a third time. Also using the starless SHO method. The last version was a little too overcooked in terms of noise reduction, and this one I used a lighter hand on the noise reduction. I also used HDR Transformation in PI to create a more detailed clone image, then used PixelMath to combine the two. The detail is better in this one as I result, I feel like.

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NGC 2174 (Monkey Head Nebula), Jonathan Piques