From Wikipedia:
The
Flame Nebula, designated as
NGC 2024 and
Sh2-277, is an
emission nebula in the constellation
Orion. It is about 900 to 1,500
light-years away.The bright star
Alnitak (ζ Ori), the easternmost star in the
Belt of Orion, shines energetic
ultraviolet light into the Flame and this knocks electrons away from the
great clouds of hydrogen gas that reside there. Much of the glow results when the electrons and ionized hydrogen recombine. Additional dark gas and dust lies in front of the bright part of the nebula and this is what causes the dark network that appears in the center of the glowing gas. The Flame Nebula is part of the
Orion molecular cloud complex, a
star-forming region that includes the famous
Horsehead Nebula."
Now I know why people spend so much money on expensive filters. The star Alnitak was a huge pain to process with multiple halos and quite a bit of bloat. I originally shot this with Ha data as well, but decided it did not make a difference over the RGB data, which was a bit surprising for a Sharpless object.
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