This is a portrait of the main glowing nebulas amid star clusters in central Auriga, the Charioteer. The main nebula at right is the Flaming Star Nebula, aka IC 405. But in this long exposure its mass blends into the central roundish nebula, IC 410. At top left is the pair of Sharpless nebulas, Sh 2-232 and the small Sh 2-235. The fingerlike nebula at top centre is Sh 2-230. The star cluster just to its left is Messier 38, with the small cluster NGC 1907 just below M38. The star cluster at left centre is Messier 36. At centre frame is the nebula IC 417 around the cluster Stock 8. The line of colourful stars at lower right between IC 405 and IC 410 is the Little FIsh or Flying Minnow asterism, aka Mel 11. This is a stack of 11 x 12-minute exposures at ISO 3200 through an Optolong L-Enhance dual-band nebula filter, blended with a stack of 12 x 8-minute exposures without a filter (for more natural star colors and the blue reflection nebula in IC 405) at ISO 800. All with the Canon EOS Ra camera through the f/5 51mm William Optics RedCat astrograph with a Starizona filter drawer. Autoguiding was with the Lacerta MGEN3 autoguider which applied a dithering shift between each frame to help cancel out thermal noise when stacking. No darks or LENR were used here on this mild winter night at -5° C or so. All stacking, alignment and blending was in Adobe Photoshop 2021. Luminosity masks (DM2, D and M) applied with Lumenzia helped bring out the faint nebulosity.
This is a portrait of the main glowing nebulas amid star clusters in Monoceros, the Unicorn. The main nebula at bottom is the Rosette Nebula, aka NGC 2237-9/45 surrounding the star cluster NGC 2244. But in this long exposure streams of nebulas extend north to connect to a large region of diffuse nebulosity around the Christmas Tree Cluster, NGC 2264, with the main nebula at top catalogued as Sharpless 2-273 and containing a region of bright blue reflection nebulosity. Just below that blue nebula is the dark, conical Cone Nebula. Just below it is the tiny (on this scale) Hubble's Variable Nebula, NGC 2261, a small bright triangular patch. The blue reflection nebula at upper right is IC 2169, surrounded by other smaller patches of reflection nebulosity including NGC 2245 and IC 446. The V-shaped dark nebula at top is LDN 1603. The star cluster just below that is Trumpler 5. This is a stack of 8 x 12-minute exposures at ISO 3200 through an Optolong L-Enhance narrow-band nebula filter, blended with a stack of 8 x 8-minute exposures without a filter (for more natural star colors and the blue reflection nebulas) at ISO 800. All were with the Canon EOS Ra camera through the f/5 51mm William Optics RedCat astrograph with a Starizona filter drawer. Autoguiding was with the Lacerta MGEN3 autoguider which applied a dithering shift between each frame to help cancel out thermal noise when stacking. No darks or LENR were used here on this mild winter night at -5° C or so. All stacking, alignment and blending was in Adobe Photoshop 2021. Luminosity masks (DM2, D and M) applied with Lumenzia helped bring out the faint nebulosity.
This is composition taking in many of the bright and not so bright nebulas in and around the Sword and Belt of Orion. At bottom is the bright Orion Nebula, Messier 42. Above it is the bluish Running Man Nebula, NGC 1973-5-7. At centre is the famous dark Horsehead Nebula, B33, silhouetted against the bright glow of IC 434. Above it, and above the blue star Alnitak is the pinkish Flame Nebula, NGC 2024. At top left is the reflection nebula complex of Messier 78 and NGC 2071. Numerous other small patches of nebulosity shine around the Belt stars at right of centre. The large Barnard's Loop, Sh-2-276, just sneaks into the corner of the frame at top left. This is a blend of filtered and unfiltered images: a stack of 8 x 8-minute exposures through an Optolong L-Enhance filter blended with a stack of 12 x 8-minute exposures without a filter, with the filtered shots at ISO 3200 and unfiltered shots at ISO 800. Stacks of 4 x 2-minute at ISO 800 and 4 x 2-minute at ISO 200 are also blended in with luminosity masks to retain the details in the bright core of the Orion Nebula, and to shrink the stars. All were with the Canon EOS Ra mirrorless camera shooting through the William Optics RedCat 51mm astrograph at f/5 (250mm focal length). The unfiltered shots were taken the night after the filtered shots, as incoming haze and ice fog cut short the shoot on the first night, January 9, 2021, and prevented more filtered shots (for lower noise) without haze. As it is, some haze surrounds the stars. The RedCat is equipped with the Starizona filter drawer accessory to make it easier to swap the filter in and out without affecting camera position. This was on the Astro-Physics Mach1 mount and guided with the made-in-Hungary Lacerta MGEN3 autoguider which also controlled the camera and applied a dithering motion between each shot to help remove thermal noise. No dark frames were taken nor was Long Exposure Noise Reduction applied in camera, though it was -5° C these nights, chilly but mild for January here in Alberta. All stacking, aligning and mean or median combining (the latter to eliminate some geosat trails) was done in Photoshop 2021. Luminosity masks to enhance the faint nebulosity and apply star masks where needed were created with the Lumenzia extension panel. The masking helps compress the dynamic range, allowing the faintest nebulosity to be enhanced without blowing out the bright highlights like the core of M42. But inevitably, the Orion Nebula ends up looking dimmer than it really is in relation to the other nebulas in the field.
