HORSE HEAD NEBULA & IC 434

Dark and emission nebula in Orion

 (ra: 05:40.9 / dec -02:28)

February 2011, Complejo La Aldea in Villa de Merlo

San Luis, Argentina

DATA

TYPE: Dark & emision Nebula

APPARENT MAGNITUDE: n/a

SIZE: B33 6x4 arc minutes

DISTANCE: 1.6 light years

OBJECT DESCRIPTION AND IMAGE SESSION

The remarkable Horse Head Nebula is a dark cloud of dust and gas which presents a particular shape. B33 stands in front of emission nebula IC 434 blocking its light. The height of B33 covers a distance of five light years and it can only be seen through photographs or special filters in  dark skies. The data was collected over to relative good nights for a total exposure of 5 hours and 40 minutes. I have to severely crop the image because the coma of the SCT, no matter that I have used a bit less than 6 mega pixeles of the 8.3 chip (same as NGC 3201)

IMAGE INFORMATION

SCOPE: Celestron SCT 8" working at 6.4

MOUNT: Sky Watcher HEQ6

SKY CONDITIONS: Transparency and Seeing good

CAMERA: QSI 583 WS -10Cº

FILTERS: Astronomik Type 2, Ha 6 nm

EXPOSURES: LHaRGB (90,130,40,40,40) RGB binned 2x2

GUIDING: William Optics ZenithStar 66 f6. Starlight Xpress Lodestar Camera. AA 3.71 Control Camera Plug-in

PROCESSING: No darks, nor flats, nor offsets. Images Plus (Sigma Median Combination) Robert Vanderbei Richardson Lucy Deconvolution; NASA Photoshop Fits Liberator, Photoshop CS