Horsehead and Flame Nebula Artifact?

[greg.dulaney]

I have a greenish 3 pointed "artifact" I think, see circled area in attachment.  I'm a Pixinsight novice so I don't know if I've introduced something here.  When I review others work with this object I don't see this structure.  I imaged the Rosette Nebula earlier in the evening with the same setup as below, CCD untouched.  There is no "artifact" in the Rosette.

Taken with a RASA 8, QHY12, 24 x 300 sec subs, PHD2 guiding, Pixinsight Batch Preprocessing and post-processing.

[pfile]

that's a schmidt ghost... happens with bright stars (like alnitak) and certain types of reflecting telescopes...

rob

[greg.dulaney]

Thanks!  Am I stuck with it or is there a method to process it out?

[John_Gill]

Hi,

I have the same issue with a Celestron 8"EdgeHD.
You can try and create a mask over the strange reflection, invert the mask and adjust the color and brightness.

Good luck
John