Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Orion (Ori)  ·  Contains:  IC 2159  ·  LBN 854  ·  Monkey Head Nebula  ·  NGC 2174  ·  NGC 2175  ·  Sh2-252
NGC 2174 - Monkey Head Nebula in SHO Palette, EasyQuest
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NGC 2174 - Monkey Head Nebula in SHO Palette

NGC 2174 - Monkey Head Nebula in SHO Palette, EasyQuest
Powered byPixInsight

NGC 2174 - Monkey Head Nebula in SHO Palette

Equipment

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Acquisition details

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Description

Comments

Along side my other project which was the Fossil Footprint Nebula. I was imaging the Monkey Head Nebula in Orion. I wanted an SHO palette image and manage to get a total of 21 hours of exposure. I cropped and rotated to desired position before posting. I overall like how this turned out!

Moon Phase, Location, and Date
  • Moon Phase in December: 95%%, 90%
  • Moon Phase in January: 1%, 10%, 27%, 57%, 66%
  • Murfreesboro, TN (Bortle 6)
  • December 21, 22, 2021
  • January 03, 05, 07, 10, 11

Equipment
  • Telescope/Lens: William Optics Fluorostar 132 (910 mm at f/6.9)
  • Flattener/Reducer: William Optics Reducer Flattener 7A x0.8 (728mm at f/5.52)
  • Auto Focuser: ZWO EAF Electronic Automatic Focuser
  • Filter: Antlia 3.0nm Narrowband SII - 36mm Unmounted
  • Filter: Antlia 3.0nm Narrowband HA - 36mm Unmounted
  • Filter: Antlia 3.0nm Narrowband OIII - 36mm Unmounted
  • Filter Wheel: QHY 3rd Generation Medium Electronic Filter Wheel - Standard Thickness (36mm Round, 7 Position)
  • Mount: Sky-Watcher EQ8-R Pro
  • Off-Axis Guider: ZWO OAG
  • Guider: ZWO ASI120MM-MINI
  • Dew Heater Controller: Pegasus Astro Pocket Powerbox Advance (Clean up Cables)
  • Dew Heater: AstroStrap Dew Heater for 6" Telescopes
  • Camera: QHY 268M
  • Polar Alignment: QHYCCD Polemaster (Precise polar alignment)
  • Laptop (For imaging, dither, auto guiding, plate solve)

Software
  • PHD2 (For Auto Guiding)
  • QHYCCD PoleMaster Software (Polar Alignment)
  • Astrophotography Tool (APT) (For Dither, plate solve, mount control)
  • Green Swamp Server (Replaced EQMOD, Remove Hand Controller and allow pulse guiding)
  • Pegasus Astro Pocket Powerbox (Control the Pocket Powerbox Advance)
  • Deep Sky Stacker (Stacking Frames)
  • Photoshop (Processing)
  • PixInsight (Processing)

Acquisition
  • Exposure per Filter: 21 Hrs
  • SII - 84 X 300s (7 hrs)
  • HA - 84 X 300s (7 hrs)
  • OIII - 84 x 300s (7 hrs)
  • Temperature: -20°C on all calibration frames as well as light frames
  • 40 Flats for Ha and SII
  • 60 Flats for OIII
  • 20 Darks (Used Master Dark file)
  • 20 Bias (Used Master Bias file)
  • Gain: 60
  • Offset: 50
  • Bin: 1x1
  • Pixel Scale: 1.07"/pixel

Processing in Photoshop and PixInsight
  • Stacked in DSS
  • Edited in Photoshop and PixInsight
  • RC-Astro GradientXTerminator
  • RC-Astro StarXTerminator in Photoshop
  • Morphological Transformation in PixInsight for star reduction
  • Star color corrections
  • Linear Dodge (add) to add back the stars
  • Manual Gradient Adjustment
  • Adjusted levels
  • Adjusted Curves
  • Selective Curves Adjustment
  • Color Correction
  • Blacks Correction
  • Light sharpening Applied
  • Light noise reduction on all channels and star layer
  • Cropped edges for clean look and square cropped for focus on object

Comments

Sky plot

Sky plot

Histogram

NGC 2174 - Monkey Head Nebula in SHO Palette, EasyQuest