B33: The Horsehead and NGC 2024: The Flame Nebula
Date: Feb 23, 2020
Cosgrove’s Cosmos Catalog ➤#0018
The Horsehead (B33) and Flame Nebula (NGC 2024) in the Constellation Orion. (click to enlarge)
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About the Target
The Horsehead Nebula is a small dark nebula located just to the south of the bright star Alnitak - the left-most star on Orions Belt. It is located some 1300 light-year from the earth. On the other side of Alnitak is the Flame Nebula. This region is rich in dust and molecular clouds that are ionized by the radiation coming from Alnitak. This is a rich area for star formation.
About the Project
Finally, we have had a clear evening, and I was able to get this shot. This is one of my favorite areas of the night sky, and I was afraid I would not get a chance to shoot it this season. The brightest star in the upper left is Alnitak, the left-most star on Orion's belt.
This is the result of 30 3-minute exposures.
The Annotated Image
An annotated image of the Horsehead and FLame Nebulae was created by using Pixinsight’s ImageSolver and AnnotateImage Scripts.
The Location in the Sky
IAU/Sky & Telescope Constellation Map of Orion - with the Horsehead/Flame region marked by the yellow arrow.
More Information
Wikipedia: Horsehead Nebula
HubbleSite: Hubble Space Telescope Image of the Horsehead Nebula
Wikipedia: The Flame Nebula
Wikipedia: Alnitak
Capture Details
Light frames
30 x 180 seconds, bin 1x1 @ -15C, unity gain
Total of 90 minutes.
Cal Frames
Not recorded
Capture Hardware
Scope: Astrophysics 130mm Starfire F/8.35 APO Scope: William Optics 132mm f/7.0 FLT APO
Guide Scope: Sharpstar 61EDPHII
Camera: ZWO ASI1600mm-pro with ZWO Filter wheel with ZWO LRGB filter set,
and Astronomiks 6nm Narrowband filter set
Guide Camera: ZWO ASI290Mini
Focus Motor: Pegasus Astro Focus Cube 2
Camera Rotator: Pegasus Astro Falcon
Mount: Ioptron CEM60
Polar Alignment: Polemaster camera
Software
Capture Software: PHD2 Guider, Sequence Generator Pro controller
Image Processing: Deepsky Stacker, Pixinsight, Photoshop - assisted by Coffee, extensive processing indecision and second-guessing, editor regret and much swearing….
During August and September I was out shooting every clear night. I had learned a lot of things but I was also noticing several issues that were causing me problems as I did more imaging. I decided to do something to address those issues….