|
With careful composition, you can
include a wide variety of nebulosities in this highly interesting
field that is located near the foot of Gemini. This deep exposure
on a very transparent night is dominated by NGC2174 in Orion
at the bottom right. This huge object is an emission nebula that
is 30 arcminutes in size and visible in a pair of binoculars
on a dark night. Although no official cluster lies in the center,
a 7.6 magnitude O6 star HD42088 lies at its center providing
ionization.
Just above it is the small
patch of nebulosity known as Sharpless 2-247, an 8 arcminute
emission object. Just above mu Geminorium - the bright orange
M3 star at upper left is IC444, a huge extended faint object
nearly a degree across. The star attraction in this are however
is IC443, the arc of nebulosity to the right of mu. This is a
supernova remnant in which you can see the entire shell here
off to the right.
Processing: Two frames
scanned with Nikon Coolpix LS2000, aligned and stacked in PixInsight.
The erosion filter at half a pixel radius in Pix was used to
cut the number of stars to half intensity because they were so
overpowering. Final adjustment, and cropping in PS.
| 
