Horsehead & Flame Nebulae
The 'Horsehead' Nebula is about 1,500 light-years away and the horse's head is mainly a large dust cloud obscuring the stars and nebulous gasses. The red color originates from hydrogen gas predominantly behind the nebula, ionized by the nearby bright star to the upper right, Sigma Orionis. To the upper left is the "Flame Nebula". Much of the glow results when the electrons and ionized hydrogen recombine. Additional dark gas and dust lie in front of the bright part of the nebula and this is what causes the dark network that appears in the center of the glowing gas. All of this is part of Orion where nearby is the famous Orion Nebula. The very bright star at the top of the photo is "Alnitak" wich is the left star of the triplet forming Orion's belt. Alnitak, a very young star less than a million years old and (compared to our sun which is 4.3 billion years old) and is about 1,260 light-years from earth and is about 20 times larger than the sun, as compared to the bright red giant Betelgeuse in the upper left of the constilation Orion (not in this picture), which is about 287 times larger than our sun. This nebula is located high overhead around 2 am in late November.
In these two images,
I added more data on the night of November 26 adding to data that I took on previous nights of Nov 23 and 24 using the blue and red channels making this a 3hr 13mn total exposure time (Not counting the calibration frames and the tossed out frames). This deep space object (DSO) doesn't clear the treetops in my yard until after 11 pm in late November so the imaging is carried on overnight with the telescope in 'auto' mode via N.I.N.A. capture program.
I took this on the night of November 23/24/26 using the monochrome camera with the Red-Geen_Blue filters. See the image of the output of the 3 filters after each of them were stacked.
The telescope: Orion ED80T with 0.8x field reducer
Camera: ZWO ASI 1600mm ProTEC
Capture Software: N.I.N.A.
Stacked in Deep SkyStacker
Post-processed in PixInsight
Blended together in Photoshop
Blue 48mn
Green 30mn
Red 115mn
Location: My Heavenly Backyard Garden
PREVIOUS CAPTURES ... October 10, 2019
The Techy Stuff: (For those who want to know)
Telescope: Orion ED80T CF Triplet Apochromatic Refractor
Camera: Altair Hypercam 294c Pro TEC
Filter: Altair QuadBand OSC CCD 2" Narrow Band
Camera Settings: 60 seconds at gain of 1500 (21%)
Camera Sensor Temp ... 14F (-10C)
Capture Software: SharpCap Pro v3.2.6054 64 bit
Mount: Celestron AVX (Tracking but no guiding)
Mount Control: Celestron PWI v2.1.25
Guide Scope: Orion Magnificant Mini Autoguider
Guiding Software: PHD 2
Subframes used: 55
Calibration Frames: Darks, Bias, Flats ... 40ea
Polar Alignment: QHY Pole Master
Stacking: Deep Sky Staker v4.2.2 64 bit
Post Procession: PixInsight & PhotoShop CC
Lunar interference: Minimal with moon setting
Bortle Light Pollution zone: 4.5
Seeing Conditions: 10 (out of 10)
Temperature: 65°F (18.3°C), Dew Point 58°F (14.4°C)
Location: My Heavenly Garden Backyard, Savannah, GA
Date: October 10, 2019
The Horsehead & Flame Nebulae
This is a 32 minute exposure from December 5, 2018...
This is a wider view of the nebulae
The Techy Stuff:
The Techy Stuff ... For those who want to know ...
Telescope: Orion ED80T CF Triplet Apochromatic Refractor f/6
Orion Field Flattener
Mount: Celestron CGX
Guiding: Orion StarShoot AutoGuider Pro & 60mm ScopeGuiding Software: PHD 2
Camera: Canon T7i (Modified)
Filter: Baader IR/UV UHC Filter
Settings: ISO 1600 at 60-second exposure
Total sub-frames: 32
8 Dark frames
Capture Software: Backyard EOS
Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker & cropped
Post processing in PixInsight & Photoshop CC
Outside temperature 36° at 1 am
Bortle Light Pollution zone: 6.5 (Barely can see the Milky Way)
Sky Condition: 10 [scale of 0 (cloudy) to 10 (clear)]
Location: My Backyard, Savannah, GA
Return to Pat Prokop's Heavenly Backyard Astronomy Page