Alnitak and surrounding HII regions (Anders Johannesson)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Orion (Ori) · Contains: 50 zet Ori · Alnitak · B33 · Flame Nebula · Horsehead nebula · IC 431 · IC 432 · IC 434 · IC 435 · LBN 944 · LBN 946 · LBN 953 · LBN 954 · NGC 2023 · NGC 2024 · Orion · Orion B · Sh2-277 · The star Alnitak (ζOri) · VdB51

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Alnitak and surrounding HII regions

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Alnitak and surrounding HII regions

In the middle of this picture is the bright Alnitak, also known as one of the bright stars in Orion's famous belt. It is located about 1300 light years from Earth. Alnitak´'s powerful ultraviolet radiation ionizes the surrounding gas, mostly Hydrogen, so that it starts to glow in H-alpha and other spectral lines. This creates the light of the well known flame nebula among other formations and it visualizes the the dark horsehead nebula.

This is probably one of the most common targets on Astrobin. I decided to take yet another picture of it, but use only H-alpha light to image this region my way. I used a 3nm filter to dim the stars and to exclude stray light from the sky. H-alpha light is red, but in a B/W camera it of course appears B/W. To remember that it is indeed red light that builds up this image, I created a redish color scale in PixInsight for the nebula, but kept the stars white as in the B/W image. I tried to do it without hiding all the beautiful details in the B/W H-alpha image.

This is also my first image I take using the N.I.N.A. sequencer (is that what it is called?) software. There is a bit of a learning curve, but it seems to work very well. I really love the plate solving that I have never tried before. I think this is a game changer for everyone, like me, that is observing from a site with very few clear nights. When it is clear, it is important not to waste any time, because the clouds can came any time.

ZWO ASI2600MM Pro
Imaged with N.I.N.A.
"Nordish by nature"
Narrowband imaging

Narrowband

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	5429565
PixInsight job	NAX2GIV12LYQ4GAL1NIFN3O2R5042UVQ
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	05h40m42s.68
RA (top/left)	05h36m15s.22
RA (top/right)	05h41m41s.13
RA (bottom/right)	05h45m10s.46
RA (bottom/left)	05h39m44s.23

Dec (center)	-02°00′40″.7
Dec (top/left)	-01°52′54″.3
Dec (top/right)	-03°06′26″.7
Dec (bottom/right)	-02°08′25″.6
Dec (bottom/left)	-00°54′56″.1

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Alnitak and surrounding HII regions

Alnitak and surrounding HII regions

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Alnitak and surrounding HII regions

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