A Clear Night - The Horsehead Nebula and the Flame Nebula

 

The Flame Nebula and the Horsehead Nebula

This is the best image I have done in a couple of year of these two winter sky nebulas, well, winter for the northern hemisphere of our planet, at least.

One of the reasons is that for years I have tried to make the sky around them black when in fact they are shrouded in galactic dust. So some dusty areas takes on a magenta/reddish color (the Horsehead Nebula) and other areas (in this case) are brownish, as in the Flame Nebula in the lower left.

I am still not satisfied (will I ever be?) but I am happy with this result of post-processing!

Scope: 600mm doublet refractor F/5

Camera: Canon T3i (modded for Ha)

Mount: Celestron AVX

Guide Camera: ZWO ASI120 monochrome

Exposure: 240 sec   ISO: 1600

Stack of 23 exposures = 92 minutes of integration

(with darks, no flats or bias frames this night)

Post-processing:

Affinity Photo for stacking

Luminar 2018 for image processing

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