B33 HH Flame

[Trevorw]

Target: B (Barnard) 33 Horsehead and Flame Nebula in Orion

Camera: Canon 350d Unmodified (now modified)

Exposure Capture: DSLR Capture

Scope: Stellarvue 80ED f/7

Mount: EQ6 Pro

Exposure Setting: Prime focus, ISO800 ICNR off Daylight WB

Exposures: Various exposures up to 330 seconds in length total 2hrs collected on 3 nights between the 1st and 4th January 2009

Seeing: Bad, Light Pollution (LP), half moon.

Guiding: Orion Starshoot Autoguider using PHD, 10x60 SV Guide Scope

Focus: DSLR Focus

Stacking: 55 frames stacked in DSS which took nearly 1 hour to stack including corresponding number of darks and flats applied. It was then cropped to remove banding and the edges, RGB (red, green blue) aligned and saturation increase to 15% in DSS before saving the TIF file.

Processing: Photoshop 7 (PS 7) and CS3, auto levels, color and contrast. Used Noel Carboni’s PS actions to enhance DSO and make stars smaller, light pollution removal

Information:

RA 5h:40m Dec -02:27. E. Pickering detected IC 434 photographically in 1889, the Horsehead can be detected on a photo made on January 25, 1900 by Isaac Roberts. E.E. Barnard recognized the object in the 1910s.

The first published description of the Horsehead Nebula was given in Barnard (1913), and it was first cataloged by Barnard (1919).

The remarkable Horsehead is a dark globule of dust and non-luminous gas, obscuring the light coming from behind, especially the moderately bright nebula IC 434. It is the most remarkable feature of an interesting region of diffuse nebulae, which belongs to a huge cloud of gas and dust situated 1,600 light years away in the direction of constellation Orion. The bright reflection nebula in the lower left is NGC 2023.

The Flame Nebula, designated as NGC 2024, is about 900 to 1,500 light-years away.

The dominant bright star in this image Alnitak(ζOri), shines energetic ultraviolet light into the Flame and this knocks electrons away from the great clouds of hydrogen gas that reside there. Much of the glow results when the electrons and ionized hydrogen recombine. Additional dark gas and dust lies in front of the bright part of the nebula and this is what causes the dark network that appears in the center of the glowing gas. The Flame Nebula is part of the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, a star-forming region that includes the famous Horsehead Nebula.

Zeta Orionis (ζ Ori), traditionally known as Alnitak (Arabic: النطاق an-niṭāq‎), is a triple star some 800 light years distant. Together with Delta Orionis (Mintaka) and Epsilon Orionis (Alnilam), the three stars make up the belt of Orion, known by many names across many ancient cultures. Zeta Orionis (ζ Ori) is the left-most star.

The primary star is a hot blue supergiant with an absolute magnitude of -5.25, and is the brightest class O star in the night sky with a visual magnitude of 1.70. It has two bluish 4th magnitude companions

[Tim]

Very nice Trevor. For an unmodded camera that is a brilliant result. The colours look very natural, and your image nicely demonstrates that the whole region is permeated with dense clouds.

That has to be the first time we've had the Arabic name, IN Arabic!! Thank you for all the details. Are these the kind of things you have in the book you have written?

TJ