11/21/03 The Flame and Zeta

This is a shot of the Flame Nebula, NGC 2024, and Zeta Orionis (a.k.a. Alnitak), the Easternmost star in mighty Orion's belt. Zeta is a bright star (mag 1.7) and it caused a massive blooming spike that I corrected manually. This is one of those object pairs that go beautifully together because of their color differences. The Horsehead nebula is also very close by the Flame, wide field shots can show both in the same frame. I'll revisit this one again for sure.