The Monkey Head Nebula

The Monkey Head Nebula ... New General Catalog (NGC) 2174 & 2175 is an emission nebula about 6,400 Light-Years from Earth. This is a star-forming region in which bright, newborn stars near the center of the nebula illuminate the surrounding gas with energetic radiation (mostly in red light). I took these nearly 5-hour images on the night of January 14/15(OSC), and 16/17(Narrow band), 2021 in my backyard (Bortle Sky rating of 4.5).


View from the One-Shot-Color camera

View from the Monochrome Camera using Narrowband Filters

The telescope: Orion ED80T with the Orion field flattener
Camera: Altair Astro Hypercam 294c Pro TEC
Camera sensor temperature: -10°C
Camera gain/offset: 900/10
Filter: Altair Astro Quadband
Guiding: PHD2 (v2.6.9 dev3) multi-star guiding
Sub-frames: 300 seconds (used 58)
Total integration time: 4hr 50mn
Calibration Frames: Darks, Flats, and Dark-Flats
Capture Software: N.I.N.A.
Stacked in Deep SkyStacker
Post-processed in PixInsight & Photoshop CC 2021
Location: My Heavenly Backyard Garden
Bortle rating: 4.5

The telescope: Orion ED80T with the Orion field flattener
Camera: ZWO ASI 1600mm Pro
Camera sensor temperature: -10°C
Camera gain/offset: 200/40
Filters: Hydrogen Alpha, Sulfur 2, Oxygen 3
Guiding: PHD2 (v2.6.9 dev3) multi-star guiding
Sub-frames: 300 seconds
Total integration time: 4hr 40mn
Calibration Frames: Darks
Capture Software: N.I.N.A.
Stacked in Deep SkyStacker
Post-processed in PixInsight & Photoshop CC 2021
Location: My Heavenly Backyard Garden
Bortle rating: 4.5



Different RGB Combinations with Different Filters

I combined the stacked filtered images using different color palettes for the Red-Green-Blue channels of a standard RGB image in PixInsight and Photoshop. The blue image is also known as the standard 'Hubble Palette' which uses the Sulfur filter for the RED channel, Hydrogen filter for GREEEN and Oxygen for the BLUE channel. I also combined them using HOO and HSO palettes.


Stacked view of the Hydrogen-Alpha Channel
(2 hour exposure)

View Using the Ha for Red with O3 for the Green & Blue channels

View Using the Sulfur for Red with Ha for the Green, O3 for the Blue channels

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