vast wren
A farewell to the dark horse in Orion, we are now in April and Orion follows the sun across the horizon when darkness falls. Here’s a reprocess of the narrowband data I captured over the past year.
IC 434 the Horsehead nebula in Orion. One of the most famous nebulae in the winter night sky is Barnard 33 the Horsehead Nebula, a dark cloud of dust that is slowly being sculpted by the bright star cluster Sigma Orionis. The Horsehead Nebula lies just below the bright blue triple star system of Alnitak which is the leftmost star in Orion’s Belt. This image was taken in the SHO Hubble palette which not only shows the separation of various gases in the nebula but also helps the structure of the dark dust clouds to stand out.
Image Acquisition details
- Telescope: William Optics GT81 WIFD (478mm focal length, 81mm aperture, f/5.9)
- Accessories: ZWO AM5, ZWO EAF, William Optics Flat 6AIII 0.8x reducer/flattener (380mm focal length, f/4.8)
- Camera: ZWO ASI183 MC Pro
- Filters: Optolong L-Ultimate Ha-OIII, Askar Color Magic D-2 OIII-SII
- Location: Bellefonte, PA
- Sky conditions: Bortle 4
- Processing: ASIair image acquisition, Siril stacking, Pixinsight processing.
- Integration time: (L-Ultimate Ha-OIII: 139x300s, Askar D-2 OIII-SII: 153x300s)
24 hours, 20 minutes integration time
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