Horse Head Nebula and Flame Nebula (Monty Giavelli)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Orion (Ori) · Contains: Flame Nebula · IC 431 · IC 432 · IC 434 · NGC 2023 · NGC 2024 · Orion B · The star Alnitak (ζOri) · The star σOri

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Horse Head Nebula and Flame Nebula

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Horse Head Nebula and Flame Nebula

Horse Head Nebula and Flame Nebula near Alnitak, one of the stars in Orions Belt.

Alnitak is very bright and creates challenges for the dimmer part of the image, lots of masking along the way.

I took 2 sets of images, one set at 180 seconds and the other set at 60 sec. I integrated the two sets independently and then used the HDRCombination process to combine the two sets. This added more dynamic range to the image and allowed me to bring out the dark areas without burning out the brighter areas and Alnitak.

To further balance the brightness of Alnitak I added saturation and luminance to two of the nebula regions. Some might say I overprocessed the image, but I look at it as an artistic rendition.

I've put more time into this image than any so far. I keep trying different ways of processing it using PixInsight and Lightroom. I'm trying not to overuse any process and keep a true representation of the nature of this fantastic area of the night sky.

I have an L-eXtreme duo-band filter coming and will add the narrowband images into the mix. I'm curious to see how my final image changes. Clear skies coming soon !

The large diffraction spikes are split !! I know my collimation is a bit off and I need an auto focuser. I really need to spend more time collimating and spend more $$ to upgrade my focuser and install an auto focuser. It never seems to end !!!

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Final
B

B

Description: I have spent untold hours trying to process this image so the faint clouds come into view while toning down the monster star Alnitak.

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Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	4227142
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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Horse Head Nebula and Flame Nebula

Horse Head Nebula and Flame Nebula

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Horse Head Nebula and Flame Nebula

Horse Head Nebula and Flame Nebula

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