B33 – horsehead nebula

B33, Horsehead Nebula and NGC2024 Flame nebule. 102x30s (51 min.) 80mm f/7 ED refractor, Baader 1,25″ h-alpha filter, Nikon D7000a.

Barnard 33 is the horse-head shaped dark cloud silhouetted agains the glow of excited hydrogen which goes by the name of IC434. To the left is the Flame Nebula NGC2024, which is an odd nebula, because it is orange, and apparently a mixture between reflection and emission nebula.

Two smaller emission nebula are in the lower portion of the image, NGC 2023 and IC435.

This is still only a test image, as it was done with a small 1,25″ h-alpha filter with which I cannot use the field flattener. Some stars have weird flares. 102 unguided 30s exposures were combined with darks and flats to create this image. Contrast was enhanced in Photoshop and Lightroom.

I am looking forward to do more h-alpha imaging in the future.