NGC 2024 The Flame Nebula (SHO)

OTA: CDK 24
Camera: FLI ProLine PL9000 & QHY 600M
Observatory: Telescope Live (CHI-1)
Date of Processing: Jan '24

Processing Tools:
1.    Commercial: PixInsight, Topaz, Photo Director 365
2.    Pixinsight Addons: NoiseXTerminator, BlurXTerminator, StarXTerminator
3.    My Scripts: NB_Assistant, AC_Restar, Subframe Weighting Tool (Excel w/ J. Hunt), ColorTweaker

Target Description:
Alnitak's proximity to the Flame Nebula ionizes the nebula's hydrogen and SII with its UV emissions but apparently does not muster enough energy to ionize the OIII significantly. However, "At the center of the Flame Nebula is a cluster of newly formed stars." (Wikipedia) That cluster is a likely source of illumination for the Flame, a more likely source than Alnitak which appears to be more distant from the nebula (more toward us).

According to Wikipedia, the dark "core" of the Flame Nebula arises from a dark interstellar cloud that lies between us and this part of the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex. However, textural changes in the bright cloud, as seen here, may indicate that it is progressively encroaching on the dark cloud in the sense that the dark cloud is progressively receiving illuminating radiation from its embeddded stars and becoming a bright  emission nebula.

Processing Description:
One telescope, two Cameras. And two sets of images that had very restricted overlap. The total exposure used was about 11 hours out of the almost 13 hours purchased. The bright star (Alnitak) off-image to the right was problematic, and I could have rejected the entire OIII stack it dominated. The very faint signal of OIII was probably a false signal emanating from the spectral continuum. Blue was introduced into the image through Hb, as 34% of the Ha signal and green arose from a 17% greenward shift of the Ha toward the green, so it did not entirely mimic the SII, which was assigned pure red. This is about as well as one desirous of "true colors" can do with our simple RGB representations, as far as I know.

I wish I had RGB for this object and more SHO…all from one camera!

Alex Woronow