Horsehead Nebula
A bicolour narrowband capture of Barnard 33 and IC 434, mapped in Hα and SII rather than the usual Hα/OIII combination, favouring structure and contrast over a conventional palette.
The object
The Horsehead Nebula (Barnard 33) sits in front of the glowing hydrogen of IC 434, creating one of the most recognisable silhouettes in the night sky. This version takes an unconventional route to get there: rather than the usual Hα/OIII combination, it's mapped in Hα and SII only, using the FORAXX palette logic.
OIII sat this one out entirely. What's left is structure, contrast, and just enough red to keep things honest — not quite traditional, but it held together better than expected.
Capture notes
Captured remotely through Telescope Live, combining roughly six hours each of hydrogen-alpha and sulphur-II data.
Processing
Processing focused on preserving the silhouette's edge while letting the SII data carry most of the colour, since OIII wasn't part of the mix this time.
The result leans more towards structure and contrast than a conventional palette — closer to an experiment than a formula, but one that ended up working.
