The Horsehead and Flame nebulae (Andy Elliott)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Orion (Ori) · Contains: 48 sig Ori · 50 zet Ori · Alnitak · B33 · Flame Nebula · HD290808 · HD290812 · HD290814 · HD290815 · HD290852 · HD290853 · HD290854 · HD294272 · HD294273 · HD294274 · HD294277 · HD294278 · HD294279 · HD294297 · HD294298 · HD294300 · HD294301 · HD294302 · HD294303 · HD294304 · HD294306 · HD294307 · HD294308 · HD294338 · HD37524 · And 40 more.

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The Horsehead and Flame nebulae

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The Horsehead and Flame nebulae

I first saw an image of the Horsehead nebula about 30 years ago in an issue of Astronomy Now magazine. I remember thinking that one day I would love to be able to take a picture like that. Well, both time and technology have moved on and in January this year I started my journey in astrophotography. This is a HaRGB image of part of the Orion B molecular cloud which contains several regions of interest: -

NGC 2024 – The Flame nebula

B33 – LDN - The Horsehead nebula

NGC 2023 – reflection nebula

IC 435 – reflection nebula

IN 431 – reflection nebula

IC 432 – reflection nebula

IC 434 – HII region

I found the post processing of this image challenging not only due to the microlensing affect from my ZWO1600mm imaging camera around Alnitak, but also with large haloes around Alnikak with the green and blue filters. This is the first time I have encountered microlensing with this camera (although I was aware that it can be an issue), but I guess Alnitak being so bright in this FOV will highlight any optical problems in most systems.

Overall, I am very pleased with the image, adding the Ha data definitely helps pull out nebulosity detail in the HII region. I added the diffraction spikes to Alnitrak just because I think that in this case it adds to the image, but of course that is a subjective thing.

The refractors!
ZWO ASI1600MM/QHY163M
UK Astro-Imaging
Fine Art Astrophotography
Imaged with APT

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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.

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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.
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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	4084796
PixInsight job	JQVLNEDVLCIRN0P7FC0G7110NP429D4P
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	05h41m03s.50
RA (top/left)	05h39m59s.16
RA (top/right)	05h37m14s.28
RA (bottom/right)	05h42m07s.84
RA (bottom/left)	05h44m52s.40

Dec (center)	-02°20′11″.0
Dec (top/left)	-01°15′34″.8
Dec (top/right)	-02°54′01″.7
Dec (bottom/right)	-03°24′44″.8
Dec (bottom/left)	-01°46′18″.8

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The Horsehead and Flame nebulae

The Horsehead and Flame nebulae

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The Horsehead and Flame nebulae

The Horsehead and Flame nebulae

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