Horsehead and Flame Nebulae, and the Ghost of Alnitak (Grrrrr!) 17 Nov 2020

[The Thing]

Perennial favourite for the time of year. Shame about the Ghost, it's a nasty doughnut and I could have a go at making it less obvious but it would probably introduce worse nasties. It's most likely caused by a reflection off the Optolong l-Enhance filter.

46x240s Gain 120 Offset 4 Temp -5c

Image date, time and location:   2020-11-17, 04:00CET (mid), Manche, France
Telescope aperture and focal ratio:   TS1506UNC Newtonian,, GPU Komakorr corrector
Camera and filters used:   ZWO ASI294MC Pro, Optolong L-Enhance dual band filter
Processing applied:   Pixinsight (EZProcessing), Darktable

[Carole]

That's a really nice image Duncan, pretty noise free, and nicely processed.

I see what you mean about the ghost, very annoying.

Pixel peeping there is something going on with the star shapes.  Left hand side there is a small "star" sitting on top of every star, but on the Top left the extra star sits at about 1 o'clock and on the right side bottom the stars are elongated.  I think this might all be down to coma/spacing?  But who am I to talk it's taken me years trying to deal with tilt and get the spacing right. 

If you don't zoom right in it is a lovely image.

Carole

[Roberto]

You have done really well!  You could easily crop the image to remove the reflection and it would still be top quality.

Roberto

[The Thing]

Thanks Carole and Roberto.

[NoelC]

Lovely bit of sky and beautifully captured.
Well done Duncan.
Didn't notice the ghost until I zoomed in - I guess there's nothing you can do about it at that FOV?

Noel