Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Eridanus (Eri)  ·  Contains:  65 Eri)  ·  NGC 1909  ·  The star Kursi al Jauzah I (ψ Eri  ·  the Witch Head Nebula
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Witch Head Nebula - IC 2118, Simon Wilson
Witch Head Nebula - IC 2118
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Witch Head Nebula - IC 2118

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Witch Head Nebula - IC 2118, Simon Wilson
Witch Head Nebula - IC 2118
Powered byPixInsight

Witch Head Nebula - IC 2118

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Description

This is IC 2118, The Witch Head Nebula, a very faint reflection nebula in the constellation of Orion.  It lies around 900 light years away and is illuminated by the supergiant star Rigel (bottom right of Orion) which is just off the edge of the image.  This is just 84 minutes of data from Saturday evening so it’s a bit on the noisy side but with the help of Russell Croman’s suite of tools I was able to stretch the Witch so we can appreciate her gnarly features!  GraXpert (free open source background extraction software) did a good job on the gradient.  And easier to use than DBE.

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Witch Head Nebula - IC 2118, Simon Wilson