M78 to Boogeyman Nebula

M78 to Boogeyman Nebula. This image is from the constellation of Orion. Three objects of interest appear in the image above.

First at the top left of the image is the Boogeyman Nebula (LDN 1622). It is a dark molecular cloud against a faint hydrogen emission nebula as it's background. (APOD)

At the bottom, just right of center is M78. M78 (NGC 2068) is a diffuse reflection nebula. M78 is the brightest of a group of nebulae that belongs to the Orion B Molecular Cloud Complex. It is located about 1600 LY from Earth and has a magnitude of approximately 8, which makes it visible through binoculars and small telescopes. (NASA Science, SEDS) Refer to the previous image in this album.

Finally the emission nebula traversing from lower left in the image to upper right, is Barnard's Loop. It is part of the Orion molecular cloud complex. The red glow comes from ionized hydrogen gas.

Image processed by Andrew Macica, original data from Telescope Live.

Imaging Details:

Observatory: Heaven's Mirror Observatory, Yass, Australia

Telescope: Takahashi FSQ-106ED

Aperture: 106 mm (4.17 inches), f/3.6

Focal Length: 382 mm (with 0.73x focal reducer)

Camera: QHY 600M Pro CMOS

Filters: LRGB

Total Exposure: 9 hours 35 minutes

Image Processing: PixInsight 1.8.9-3 Ripley (x64);

BlurXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator, StarXTerminator (RC Astro);

Python 3.9

Adobe Photoshop 25.12.1;

Adobe Lightroom Classic 14.2

Instruction on PixInsight from Adam Block Studios.