Taken at 135mm, this widefield shows lots of reflection nebulae as well as H-alpha gases from the lower end of Barnards-loop. The bright star Rigel casts a huge halo that was not easy to tone down. This shows the sheer power of the blue super-giant which shines 47000 times brighter than our own sun. This image is a combination of a one-shot color image (OSC) in broadband with just an UV/IR cut filter with a dualband HaOIII filter. In order to isolate the Hydogen-alpha signal, I extracted the red channel of the HaOIII dualband image and blended it into the broadband image to emphasize the surrounding H-alpha gas.
You can also find a deeper look of the region taken with an Esprit 100ED telescope here.
Technical Details
Frames:
- UV/IR cut filter: 275×300″(22h 55′)
- HaOIII Dualband (6nm): 63×600″(10h 30′)
Total Integration: 33h 25′
You can find this image also posted on my astrobin profile.
Sky Plot
The Witch Head Nebula is located in the winter constellation of Orion. It is very close to the star Rigel and often lies quite low in the horizon from middle European latitudes. Feel free to explore the region using the interactive Sky Plot built by Aladine Lite.