Messier 78 - Casper the Friendly Ghost

Image Description and Details :

Shot in true color (with Ha added) in Borrego Springs earlier this month at the Nightfall star party, this is one I have attempted several times at home and it's never really worked out. It needs a dark sky. Casper is a rather famous reflection nebula in Orion not far from the Horsehead and the Great Orion Nebula. About 1,500 light years distant, Casper is a dynamic star-forming region containing about 45 T Tauri stars (young stars that are still forming) and 17 Herbig-Haro (HH) objects (objects that are not quite stars but presumably will be soon). Several of the HH objects are visible in the image as bright red dots surrounded by cold, dark dust.

Details: Celestron EdgeHD 1100 telescope with 0.7x reducer; 10Micron GM1000HPS mount; ZWO ASI6200MM camera; Chroma LRGB filters and Chroma 3nm Ha filter for the hydrogen-alpha signal); 9 hours exposure time.

Copyright: Accidental Astronomers