The Horsehead and Flame Nebula (IC434)
Located on the easternmost part of Orion's belt, these nebula lie approx 1375 light-years from earth and are connected (in our view) by the star Altinak.
At the center of the Flame Nebula is a cluster of newly formed stars, 86% of which have circumstellar disks.
This image was captured over several nights earlier this month. 3 nights (14h 29m) of data were captured without a filter and one night I captured Hydrogen Alpha (Ha) emissions using the Optolong L-Ultimate filter.
I combined the RGB data with the Ha data to bring out greater detail in the Ha regions.
Imaged from my Bortle 7 backyard.
Scope: Askar FRA300
Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC
Mount: iOptron CEM70EC
Filter: Optolong L-Ultimate (78 x 180s – 3h 54m) / No Filter (869 x 60s – 14h 29m)
All post processing done in PixInsight
– spfc, mgc, spcc, btx, stx, ghs, stf stretch, nxt, ct, ht, pixelmath, convolution, unsharp mask, imageblend
by scotaf