M78 LRGB wide field

Been clouded out in New Mexico for more than a week, but had some clear skies tonight to do a little imaging. It was windy, so I imaged with the Sky 90 and ST-10XE camera.

This image of M78 has 80 minutes of luminance and 8 sets of RGB at 5 minutes each, so 40:40:40 minutes RGB. Taken on Paramount ME via internet; scope is at New Mexico Skies.

The color is a little unusual. Typically, I am trying to remove green because of light pollution, but there isn't any at New Mexico Skies. So the green here is from - what? Maybe OIII emissions, but it's really there and now I am curious to find out what it is. The red/pink glow at upper left is a small piece of Barnard's Nebula, the huge circle of HII emission around Orion. Judging from the color, it is emitting in h-beta (blue) as well as H-alpha (deep red). This is a fascinating area, with numerous reflection, HII, and other nebulosity all over the place.

This is a small version, about half size. For the full size version, please see:

http://www.newastro.com/remote/images/M78_LRGB2.jpg

Ron Wodaski
http://www.newastro.com/remote

Attached Image:

beautiful as usual ron. The green is interesting as well. I have seen it in other images of the object; there obviously seems to be something going on aside from the 'normal' reflection nebula process. Perhaps the particles that make up this nebula are a different size than most others and therefore scatter a little more green. I dunno.