Witch Head Nebula and NGC 1788 (Adeel Shafiq)

Witch Head Nebula and NGC 1788

Title: Cosmic Witch caught in the Dark!

Deep sky astrophotography sometimes can provide us with spine chilling images that tickle our imaginations. One of the most spookiest views in the night sky is of Witch Head Nebula aka IC 2118. The Witch Head Nebula is located near Orion’s brightest star, Rigel. The Witch Head Nebula is categorized as a reflection nebula, or one that shines with the aid of a nearby star. In this case, Rigel shines its bright light on the gas and dust to create the reflection that we see.

You can also see NGC 1788 which is a reflection nebula as well, located in a dark and often neglected corner of the Orion constellation. It is rather sharply defined on its southwest perimeter where it is flanked by the dark nebula known as Lynds 1616.

During our recent visit to bortle 1 skies of Bela, Balochistan me and my friend Dr Ahmad couldn't resist capturing this creepy jewel of the night sky given the opportunity of being in the darkest skies possible. Due to limited window of time we decided to have a go at it together with Dr Ahmad capturing the data and I did the post processing. Really glad that we turned our lens towards it as the dark skies proved to be very helpful in bringing out it's true colors.

EXIF: 120 sec x 61 light frames - ISO 1600, f/2.8, 135mm
15 darks and 30 bias frames
EOS 2000D, Samyang 135mm f/2 lens
Skywatcher Star adventurer pro
Stacked using DSS, processing done using PS 2020
Starnet ++ for star removal.

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	n/a
Started	n/a
Astrometry.net job	n/a
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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