After more than two months of intensely imaging my largest-yet, a 9-panel mosaic in Orion's Belt, it is now complete (sort of). The original mission was to capture Orion's Belt in its entirety in (R+HA)GB. Unpredictable weather during a good number of Moonless nights unfortunately led to this being reduced to RGB, for now. My plan is to capture the 22.5 hours of Hydrogen-Alpha data late this year, to add on. However, RGB being complete, this is the end result:
It is unfortunate that there are a number of streaks corresponding to reflections, but it is difficult to avoid these when imaging three extremely bright stars with 10-minute exposures in RGB. Regardless, the image contains a stunning amount of diffuse nebulosity all over the place, demonstrating that Orion's Belt is far from just three stars with the famous NGC2024 Flame Nebula and B33 Horsehead Nebula.
Quite importantly with such a large image containing two very prominent targets, I thought it would be good to use the data to produce a second image that is just the NGC2024 Flame Nebula and B33 Horsehead Nebula. This area corresponds to only two out of the nine panels that make up the mosaic. This second image was cropped out of the monochrome pre-processed data and post-processed completely separately:
Quite importantly with such a large image containing two very prominent targets, I thought it would be good to use the data to produce a second image that is just the NGC2024 Flame Nebula and B33 Horsehead Nebula. This area corresponds to only two out of the nine panels that make up the mosaic. This second image was cropped out of the monochrome pre-processed data and post-processed completely separately:
What really stands out for me is the extreme detail in the NGC2024 Flame Nebula - all those streaks of dark nebulosity branching out.
The large 9-panel mosaic image comprises 89.5 hours of exposure time in 537 exposures. Conversely, the smaller image that is simply two out of nine panels, comprises just 20 hours of exposure time in 120 exposures.
The large 9-panel mosaic image comprises 89.5 hours of exposure time in 537 exposures. Conversely, the smaller image that is simply two out of nine panels, comprises just 20 hours of exposure time in 120 exposures.