The Horsehead Nebula is one of the most famous deep-sky objects there is. It is located in 1500 light years away in Orion. it’s formed by an area of dark nebulosity projecting in front of the bright emission nebula IC 434. This resembles the silhouette of a horse’s head. To the left of the Horsehead is the Flame Nebula which is a mere 1400 light years from here.
This image was done on three of our telescopes. The basic wide field image was imaged on our RH 350 980 mm f 2.8 scope in RGB for color, and Hydrogen Alpha (Ha) and Sulfur II (SII) for the detail channel. The Ha component consists of 30 hours of exposure time and the SII 25 hours.The Horsehead was imaged in Luminance and Ha with a total integration time of 33 hours on our RiDK 400 FL 2800 mm and blended back into our luminance channel to enhance detail. The Flame Nebula was imaged on our RiDK 500 FL 3500 with 16 hours of luminance and blended back into our luminance channel.
Imaged at Observatorio El Sauce, Obstech, Chile
Image Processing: Mike Selby
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