M78, LDN 1622, and a piece of Barnard's Loop

December 20, 2023

Top right is a structure composed of a batch of dark nebulae clustered around the reflection nebula Messier 78 (M78, NGC 2068), about 1,350 lightyears away, and bottom left is LDN1622, the "Boogeyman Nebula" about 500 lightyears away. And the wide ribbon running between them, mostly ionized hydrogen and interstellar dust, is part of "Barnard's Loop", which runs around the Alnitak side of the constellation Orion. 

Imaging Notes: 49 x 300-second subs taken with the ZWO ASI071MC color camera (cooled to 0°C, gain 0) and the William Optics Redcat 51 apochromatic refractor (250mm FL, f/4.9), Sky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro mount, ZWO ASIAir Plus astro controller. I shot 94 sub-expsures at 5-minutes each, starting around 7pm and running through the night to about 4am, but ended up tossing almost half of them, stacking the best 49.