Horsehead (Barnard 33) and Flame Nebula

Barnard 33, known as the Horsehead, is an iconic dark nebula in the constellation Orion. Its characteristic shape, resembling a horse's silhouette, is actually an opaque cloud of dust standing against the glowing background of the emission nebula IC 434. The entire formation is about 1,500 light-years away and lies near the star Alnitak – the easternmost star of Orion's Belt.

In close proximity lies the Flame Nebula (NGC 2024), a vast star-forming region whose appearance resembles a burning fire. The bright central parts are caused by the gas being illuminated by strong ultraviolet radiation from nearby stars.

Acquisition

This was the first major project I captured during the winter. I spent a total of 5 winter nights on it (about 20.5 hours of exposure). I started shooting in late November and finished towards the end of December. Bad weather didn't allow for imaging every day, but this was my first big project with the new rig.

Acquisition took place on these nights: Nov 25, 30; Dec 1, 25, 26.

Once again, everything was captured using N.I.N.A and PHD2

Processing

First, I loaded the photos into DSS, analyzed them there, filtered out the unwanted ones, and stacked them. I imported the final TIF into PixInsight and started editing. During editing, I utilized GraXpert and applied star reduction (convolution). Next, I removed the stars from the photo using Starnet. Unfortunately, I was using the software (a PixInsight plugin) for the first time, and artifacts appeared when removing larger stars (those with halos). On the other hand, setting those artifacts aside, the background clouds look mega nice. 🤩