The highlight of this image is the tiny bright reflection nebula, NGC 1999 located in the middle of my image. It is around 1,350 light-years away in the constellation of Orion and is just south of the famous Orion Nebula. The nebula shines not because it is producing its own light but rather from reflected light from the star, V380 Orionis - the star shines on dust in the Orion A Giant Molecular Cloud. The dark area in the center resembling a keyhole was originally thought to be a dark nebula or Bok globule, however, recent studies indicate that it is an empty space which is still quite interesting.
The rest of this region is filled with faint hydrogen gas in addition to the dust from the molecular cloud. It is much less bright than the nearby Orion Nebula but still shows quite a bit of radiating flow structure. There are also many other features in the field such as Herbig-Haro (HH) objects which are objects associated with newborn stars and other reflection nebulae such as IC 430.
This was one of the most challenging objects in capturing and processing. The Readers' Digest version of difficulties follow. When imaging LRGB between 12-30-24 and 1-4-25 streaks appeared in most of the 90 second exposures taken over a couple of hours each day - it was as if an armada of satellites were passing by over a couple of hours on a certain trajectory over several nights. I was able to process them out in PS. Speaking of processing, I spent a few days almost ready to post the results only to start over from scratch. The original was more dependent on the luminosity data. The luminosity did bring out some interesting detail in certain regions that was different from what the Ha brought out, however, it degraded an even larger portion of the image. Ultimately the reason for the degradation is the same reason I do not image nearby NGC 1909, the Witch Head Nebula, the light pollution to the south is noticeably worse especially at lower altitudes.
Hydrogen looked really good as it was unaffected by the poor sky conditions. I did numerous blends in the red channel, luminosity channel, and additional blend. I also blended some of the LRGB portions from the original processed image into this version. I was having trouble with adjusting the red color so I asked my wife for assistance - I like the resulting deep red color.
Dates: 12-30-24, 1-1-25, 1-2, 1-3, 1-4, 1-15, 1-17, 1-20, 1-23
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NGC 1999 (2025)Dates: 12-30-24, 1-1-25, 1-2, 1-3, 1-4, 1-15, 1-17, 1-20, 1-23
Camera: ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro
Telescope: Astro-Tech AT115EDT 115mm Refractor Telescope
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 805mm (644mm w/ FR)
f/7
Focal Reducer: 0.8x AstroTech Field Flatterner/Focal Reducer
Mount: Orion Sirius
Filter Wheel: ZWO
EFW 8 x 1.25"
Filter: Antlia Ha; ZWO R, G, B, UV
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Autoguiding: ASI120 Mini attached to an Agena 50mm Guide Scope/ZWO 60mm Guidescope
Exposure: Ha 67 x 300, UV 141 x 90, R 53 x 90, G 43 x 90, B 66 x 90 (13h 9')
Gain: 139
Offset 20
Sensor Temp: -20 C
Processing: NINA, PixInsight, Photoshop, BlurXTerminator, StarXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator, GraXpert, Bill Blanshan Stretching.
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