The Monkey Head (NGC 2174)

[CKemu]

Late in Orion season and after many months of not being able to use my scope due to weather and work, I settled on looking at this object as I have never seen it before, and had little knowledge of.

Hazy sky, gremlins from not using my scope for so long and learning my ASI120mm and mc no longer work due to ZWO's "interesting" implementation of USB2 being broken by Windows 10 updates to force "correct standards" on USB devices caused plenty of headaches!

This was more of a test/getting back on the horse/just taking the opportunity to image - and whilst it lacks data, I am fairly happy with the result.

Technical:

Telescope: Espirit 100ED
Camera: ATIK414ex (Faulty with hardware issue, but ..well it mostly stacks out!)
Imaging/Guiding: ATIK EFW with Baader H-Alpha and OIII filters, ASI290mm for guiding (Glad I had it for solar imaging). Guiding, not sure if I need to recalibrate or just do a better job, but my RMS was 0.8"-1.4".
Stack: 16 x 600s Ha, 20 x 600s OIII (FWHM around 2.5-3.3) Shot over two nights.
Process: DSS using one Ha reference frame across both stacks. StarNet removal of stars. Photoshop CC (Current), Ha Red Channel, Ha x O3 artificial Green, O3 Blue, Levels, Colour balance/selective colour, Ha Lum/stars.

Was a joy to get back out, see something new and recall how cold it is at midnight!