Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Orion (Ori)  ·  Contains:  Horsehead nebula  ·  IC 431  ·  IC 432  ·  IC 434  ·  IC 435  ·  NGC 2023  ·  NGC 2024  ·  The star Alnitak (ζOri)
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Vivid Nebulae in Orion's Belt, Brian Fulda
Vivid Nebulae in Orion's Belt
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Vivid Nebulae in Orion's Belt

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Vivid Nebulae in Orion's Belt, Brian Fulda
Vivid Nebulae in Orion's Belt
Powered byPixInsight

Vivid Nebulae in Orion's Belt

Equipment

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Acquisition details

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Description

The Horsehead and Flame Nebulae with Alnitak

I spent two nights imaging and stargazing in Death Valley for a little birthday astro trip. We had excellent conditions both nights in this Bortle 1 zone and I only needed 40 minutes of integrated exposure time for this target. I recently made some modifications to my Newtonian telescope, including a small foam mask to block light hitting my primary mirror clips. Previously this had been deforming my star shapes and causing unwanted diffraction flares on bright stars. I was stoked to see my experiment worked as evidenced by the nice symmetrical shape of Alnitak. I’m excited to have made this $500 telescope perform like a much more expensive one.

Telescope: Orion 8" f/3.9 Astrograph

Mount: Skywatcher EQ6-R Pro

Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI 071 MC Pro

Coma Corrector: Skywatcher Aplanatic CC

Guiding: ZWO Off-Axis Guider with ASI 120MM-Mini

Polar Alignment: QHY Polemaster

Lights: 20 x 120s = 40 minutes of total exposure

Gain: 90

Offset: 20

Darks: none

Flats: none

Bias: none

Taken from a Bortle 1 zone in Death Valley, CA

Stacked in DeepSkyStacker

Processed in Adobe Photoshop

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Vivid Nebulae in Orion's Belt, Brian Fulda