At last! A snippet of clear sky between fast-changing clouds. Enough to grab a few 30 second exposures of a weird little nebula, IC 426. I turned to one of my to do lists on my phone, that contained unusual objects I wanted to image. I managed to get a moment after a short viewing session at the observatory to whack on my camera, focus on Alnilam, and run off some shots as I dodged the clouds. The moon was rising during the exposures, of which 12 were useful. I got home and processed in Deep Sky Stacker, using some old darks and flats, which I really need to update. Still I got this weird blue thing that looks a bit like the North America Nebula. All I saw on the back of the camera was a wavy line passing between the two brightish stars at centre and winding round like a river on a map. After processing, the rest of the nebula appeared, along with a few other patches. Judging from the colour, this looks like a reflection nebula. The nebula is located to the 'upper left' of the star Alnilam, and the orientation of the illumination seems to fit with Alnilam being the source. So as a first guess, this floating patch of dust could be part of the Orion Stellar Association about 900 light years away [need references].
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