Something Wicked
The Witch Head Nebula (IC2118) appears like a ghostly creature in this image, silently approaching the bright star Cursa (Beta Eridani) to the left. Its ethereal form is illuminated by the nearby supergiant Rigel (off image), casting the nebula in a pale grey / blue light.
Alas, time and weather have been against me, and unfortunately the right most panel I could only manage 30 minutes of integration (which can be clearly seen as the image gets noisy and colourless towards the right - its all I notice when I look at this image). The other panels have about 3 hours of integration each, with current total image integration of around 10 hours conducted over four nights. Orion is getting low in the sky now, so I am now doubting I'll finish this work this year - which is why I'm posting this incomplete image now.
