Horsehead Nebula

Dark Nebula in Orion

Uploaded 2/7/11

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This new image, after nearly a decade of having not imaged this object with the 12 inch is probably the best Ill get with this instrument with reasonable exposure times. The blue glow of Zeta Orionis can be seen just out of the field to the left, making it very challenging to get a deep shot of this nebula. I was surprised at how many galaxies were present in this image behind the red curtain of IC434, the emission nebula behind the horse. While none of them were plotted in Megastar, they seem to be fainter than 17th magnitude at best. The very cyan colored NGC2023 can be seen on the lower left corner of this frame.
Instrument: 12.5" f/5 Home made Newtonian Mount: Astrophysics 1200 QMD CCD Camera: SBIG 10XME NABG with Enhanced Water Cooling Guider: Meade DSI Pro w/Lumicon Newt Easy Guider Exposure: LRGB = 180:30:30:30 AstroDon RGB Combine Ratio: 1: 1.05: 1.2 Location: Payson, Arizona, Elevation: 5150 ft. Sky: Seeing FWHM = 5 arcsec (Maxim DL - 10min subframe), Transparency 9/10 Outside Temperature: 35 F CCD Temperature: -30 C Image Processing Tools: Maxim DL: Calibration, deblooming (Starizona Debloomer), aligning, stacking PixInsight: Curves, Deconvolution Photoshop CS2: Curves, Color Correction, Gradient removal (Grad Xterminator), Cleanup HOME GALAXIES EMISSION NEBS REFLECTION NEBS COMETS GLOBULARS OPEN CLUST PLANETARIES LINKS