M38 and the Flaming Star Nebula
It was a very cold night, -8 degress Celsius at the observation site near Dângău Mare, although the car’s thermometer indicated -14 at some places on the road back. While contemplating the beauties of the southern vs the northern sky, I imaged this vista in Auriga, which to my surprise turned out to look very nice with my setup. The frame contains, among others:
- M 38 or NGC 1912 [open cluster] 6.4m
- NGC 1893 [open cluster+nebula] 7.5m
- IC 405 or C 31 Flaming Star nebula 10m
- IC 417 and NGC 1931 (the Spider and the Fly)
Technical data: 26×2 min, ISO 1600, Canon 1100D mod, Canon 200mm f/2.8 @ f/4, HEQ5, Dângău, Cluj. One step of the processing was my star reducer.
raw sample
stack
stack croprot
basic curves
before star reducing
healed frame
auto combine
all the stars
maximum reduction
Final picture with 66% star reduction: M38 and the Flaming Star Nebula
as platesolved by astrometry.net
