Something a little different: IC 426 in Orion

Located about 1 degree north of Epsilon Orionis (the middle star of Orion's belt) lies this interesting little reflection nebula, IC 426, also cataloged as LBN 921, located at RA 05h 36m 30s Declination -00°18'. I stumbled upon this object when I was looking for other targets in the vicinity (IC 423 and IC 424). I bypassed those targets for want of a suitable guide star for the equipment I was using. In IC 426's case, not only was there a suitable guide star, but the nebula itself is pretty interesting!

I don't see much written about this nebula other than that it is a bright reflection nebula. There are also very few amateur images of this object, which raised my interest in it. There appears to be a bit of background nebulosity showing up as well. Possibly dust (paging Tom Davis!), possibly faint emission nebulae?

Imaged over three nights December 2009 using a remote telescope at New Mexico Skies in Mayhill, NM.

Exposure Details:
L: 24 x 15 Minutes Binned 1x1
R: 13 x 15 Minutes Binned 1x1
G: 13 x 15 Minutes Binned 1x1
G: 13 x 15 Minutes Binned 1x1

Equipment Used: 10" RCOS Ritchey-Cretien on a Paramount ME. SBIG ST-10XME with 5-position filter wheel and Astrodon HaLRGB filters. AO-8 adaptive optics unit. Guided using the camera's built-in guide chip and AO-8 unit.

Acquisition Software: MaximDL, TheSky6, ACP
Processing Software: MaximDL, Photoshop CS, IrFanView, Noel Carboni Actions

Larger image here:

http://www.skiesbyafrica.com/Nebulae/IC426.html

Click on image for largest image, about 80% full resolution.

Comments and suggestions always welcome.
Eric

Attached Image:

Great image Eric, I like how much low level data you've brought out - nice. I noticed you are using an ST-10 - I'm using one too, how do you handle the blooms?

cheers,

Jeff

That's one I've never seen before.
Thanks for the introduction, Eric.
My only suggestion would be to try some deconvolution on just the stars to tighten them up a bit.
I'm putting this one on my to-do list for next year.
Great catch.

dan

P.S.
I assume that one of the subexposures was blue, not 2 greens as written?

Great image Enrico! 8)
Lots of work went into this one, thanks for sharing!

Thanks, everyone!

Jeff, I use Ron Wodaski's Debloomer application as a plug-in to MaximDL. It handles the blooms nicely for the most part.

Dan, thanks for the catch! Yes indeedy, that's a blue, and not 2 sets of Green! I've corrected the website. I'll see what I can do about the stars. I actually already shrunk them a bit with a touch of Minimum Filter (just enough to keep them from turning into diamonds). The data itself was a little "fat" (FWHM readings of 3+ arc-seconds per sub). As I only have access to the equipment one night a week (I'm just sharing it with its owner), I shoot every clear night over there, never mind the seeing!

Eric

Sweet image of an obscure target. I really like seeing these less-photographed gems. Nicely done.

PS - Speaking of Wodaski's Debloomer plugin for MaxIm... What settings do you use for deblooming?