Horsehead Nebula (IC 434) and Reflection Nebula NGC 2023 in HOO (William Gottemoller)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Orion (Ori) · Contains: Flame Nebula · IC 434 · NGC 2023 · Orion B

Horsehead Nebula (IC 434) and Reflection Nebula NGC 2023 in HOO, William Gottemoller

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Horsehead Nebula (IC 434) and Reflection Nebula NGC 2023 in HOO

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Horsehead Nebula (IC 434) and Reflection Nebula NGC 2023 in HOO

This image features Barnard 33, otherwise known as the Horsehead Nebula, and NGC 2023, a reflection nebula, both of which are in Orion. Because we dismantled the imaging train the following afternoon, I was unable to get LRGB data (which would've improved the detail and noise, especially in the reflection nebula and the lower portion). Instead, I tried to salvage the image with 255 minutes of H-alpha and OIII data.

The results were preferable, but not exceptional. Because of the limited exposure and lack of broadband data, there was a lot of noise and little room for stretching. Also, my postprocessing skillset is lackluster at best, so the data did not live to its potential. I used Photoshop for postprocessing, but I will be switching to PixInsight in a week.

You may also see some weird colors in the stars on the color image. This is because of (1) poor editing and management of stars and (2) an odd issue with the Chroma filters. We are finding that there is some displacement between the H-alpha and OIII stars, which causes the centroids of each star after stacking to be ever-so-slightly off; we have employed numerous stacking methods on DeepSkyStacker and PixInsight, but we, so far, have been unable to fix the issue. If anyone is aware of this issue and knows how to fix it, please elaborate in the comments. Thank you!

The revision is a stretched version of the H-alpha channel.

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Title: 135 minutes of H-Alpha (2x2)

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Milwaukee Astronomical Society
Narrowband imaging

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Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	5331545
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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Horsehead Nebula (IC 434) and Reflection Nebula NGC 2023 in HOO

Horsehead Nebula (IC 434) and Reflection Nebula NGC 2023 in HOO

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Horsehead Nebula (IC 434) and Reflection Nebula NGC 2023 in HOO

Horsehead Nebula (IC 434) and Reflection Nebula NGC 2023 in HOO

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