The Horsehead Nebula and NGC 2023

The Horsehead Nebula and NGC 2023
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The Horsehead Nebula and NGC 2023

The Horsehead Nebula (aka Barnard 33) is a small dark nebula in the constellation Orion. The nebula is located just to the south of Alnitak, the easternmost star of Orion's Belt, and is part of the much larger Orion molecular cloud complex. It appears within the southern region of the dense dust cloud known as Lynds 1630, along the edge of the much larger, active star-forming H II region called IC 434. It is approximately 1,375 light-years from Earth.

NGC 2023 (lower left) is an emission and reflection nebula in the equatorial constellation of Orion. This reflection nebula is one of the largest in the sky, with a size of 10 × 10 arcminutes. It is located at a distance of 1,300 light years from Earth.

The glare from Alnitak was pretty overpowering and took some work to tame. Also I used the new SPCC process in PixInsight for the first time, the difference between PCC is subtle but definitely helped bring some of the colours out, particularly in NGC 2023.
SPECIFICATIONS
Telescope ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Telescope
Planewave CDK24 Chi-1
Camera ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Camera
FLI ProLine PL9000
Location ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Location
El Sauce Observatory, Rio Hurtado, Chile
Date of observation ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Date of observation
Dec 2021 - Apr 2022
Filters ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Filters
Astrodon LRGB
Processing ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Processing
PixInsight, RC Astro Tools, Photoshop
Credits ..........................................................................................................................................................................................................................
Credits
Data: Telescope Live, Processing: Jonathan Lodge
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