An artistic view of the Horsehead

The red glow, normally visible behind the Horsehead nebula is severely reduced by the Canon’s filter, and appeared noisy. In addition, the colour was uneven with the poor flat field I had used. This one I obtained by shining a lamp onto a translucent film held over the scope’s aperture. I haven’t investigated whether the rainbow came from the flat or the star Alnitak (ζ Orionis), although from its position I strongly suspect it was from the starlight bouncing off the drawtube and interacting with my focal reducer lens elements. After applying a colour gradient removal, this beautiful optical effect was revealed with a wonderful colour balance and the dust clouds in the lower part stood out as a more 3D landscape from which the giant, black horse’s head protrudes. The horse has a red glow around the top of its head and a green glint reflecting off its dusty forehead. I differentially blurred the darker regions of the image more, to give a soft looking background, while still preserving the detail in the stars and glowing strands.