Flame nebula in H-alpha, 6 x 1 hr subs.
Full resolution image here.
There are surprisingly few long focal length 2024's out there, and even fewer in H-alpha. Now we know why. It's hard to photograph. Not very contrasty, and glare from Alnitak is a problem.
The six or so brilliant reflection donut copies of Alnitak are at first sight rather intrusive, disappointing, to the "have tantrum now" stage.
(It is actually better than our previous effort, which had more like 20 even brighter copies of Alnitak.)
But, take heart! If we borrow some artistic licence, it's not a bad Gotterdammerung style picture of Yggdrasil after an Aussie bushfire.
Alternatively, it is a Meatloaf Bat out of Hell, perhaps crossed with a Bogong moth (again to give an Aussie Christmas flavour) complete with barbecue flames and six big sandstone millstones from the Rocks. The bat-moth, flying towards us, is the central, blackest part of the tree-trunk.
If we put on our Arthur Boyd glasses, there is large, translucent Tormented Soul wearing floppy pyjamas, larger than the bat, and toward eleven o'clock.
Yet again, if you can ignore the reflections, and just look at the underlying image, it is actually a not-too-bad NGC 2024, with lots of very fine filaments of dust criss-crossing each other in many directions. It's fun to follow these about.
Best,
Mike and Trish
(Chastened but not defeated)