Nebula Clouds around the Horsehead Nebula
1/2026
ASI2600MM, 360mm f/2.8, 1h Ha
There are plenty of colorful images around showing the Horsehead Nebula, but personally I am fascinated by the tiny structures and smooth gradients contained of narrowband data, which are most often hidden in a color rendition. So I decided to focus on Hydrogen Alpha only this time. Luckily this region is bright enough to render a detailed image with only a little of integration time.
The idea evolved while assembling the page Narrowband and fast telescopes, a result from the cloudy weather since autumn. Only a few unfinished projects remain from the past quarter, but some of them got me thinking. So I repeated an image from the region around the Tulip Nebula for more details using my slower APO. I was rather surprised, that I managed to collect more narrowband data in less time compared to the old image taken with the fast Newtonian.
The only explanation I had were my narroband filters, which I've been aware are not a good match for the faster telescope. But I always thought, that this would be compensated by the faster focal ratio. Some tests with a proper highspeed filter proved me quite wrong.
Comparing details of narrowband images from different targets was pretty intense and reminded me of my first steps in photo-life using black&white material and developing stuff in the dark room.