Since long I wished to portray the Witch Head Nebula, and eventually I managed to do this last January, with the help of the few clear sky nights opening up in this warm, cloudy and windy winter.
Despite the pretty long 11h+, the signal was difficult to process: the version here is my third attempt.

I published separately a comparison between RGB and old IR data, taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope. The light of young stellar objects obscured by IC2118, becomes more visible in IR.

IC 2118
Also known as Witch Head Nebula, or NGC1909, Ced 41, LBN959, is a large (3 x 1 degrees) reflection nebula believed to be an ancient supernova remnant or a gas cloud illuminated by nearby supergiant star Rigel. The nebula lies in Eridanus, about 960 light-years from Earth, according to Simbad. The nature of the dust particles, reflecting blue light better than red, is a factor in giving the Witch Head its bluish color. Radio observations show substantial carbon monoxide emission throughout parts of IC 2118, an indicator of the presence of molecular clouds and star formation in the nebula. In fact candidates for pre-main sequence stars and some classic T-Tauri stars have been found deep within the nebula.

The molecular clouds of IC 2118 are probably juxtaposed to the outer boundaries of the vast Orion-Eridanus bubble, a giant supershell of molecular hydrogen blown by the high mass stars of the Orion OB1 association. As the supershell expands into the interstellar medium, favorable circumstances for star formation occur. IC 2118 is located in one such area. The wind blown appearance and cometary shape of the bright reflection nebula is highly suggestive of a strong association with the high mass luminous stars of Orion OB1. The fact that the heads of the cometary clouds of IC2118 point northeast towards the association is supporting this model.

NGC1720
Among the several galaxies present in the field, I would like to point out the beautiful NGC1720. Also called PGC 16485, it  is a barred spiral galaxy Type SBab. Its extimaed distance is 182 Mly with a diameter of 110 kly.


Picture 1: Galaxies NGC 1729 (top left) and NGC1720 (bottom right) in a strong magnification of the lower right corner of the main image. Many of the remote galaxies visible in the background are not even registered in Simbad.

NGC1797
It is an Sa Type galaxy at a distance of 194 Mly and a diameter of 95 kly.It is probably gravitationally bound to NGC 1799. Both visible close to the bottom border, in the middle.


Picture 2: Gravitationally bound galaxies NGC 1799 (top) and NGC1797 (bottom) can be located close to the bottom of the main image