Horsehead cont’d.

[Gavin1234]

Got some more horsehead data this morning. It’s looking a little better but I’m planning to work on this for a very long time. I really love this target.
I wish that I framed it better.

[Imme]

What time are you getting up for this???

[Gavin1234]

I moved my scope yesterday so I could get more time on it but that meant my alignment and guiding was poor so I had to go with 2 min exposures instead of my planned 5 min ones. It was visible from 1:50 am this morning. I had set my alarm for 3 but woke up at 1.50 by coincidence and it was just above my roofline.

Up until I moved my scope I was getting up at 4:45 am and only getting 45 mins before the sun came up.

[casstony]

Looks great. I'm looking forward to Orion but at a more reasonable time of night :)

[cometcatcher]

Looking good so far.

[xelasnave]

Yes looking good.
Its got be straight above before I have a chance.
I stupidly trashed my horsehead data from last year...
Alex

[Imme]

Now that's commitment!!!!

....especially as it will be up at a reasonable time in the very near future.

[Gavin1234]

Haha yeah I know it won’t be long but this target was the first reason I took up this hobby and it hasn’t been visible since I got my scope. So I’m really keen to start on it.

I’ve been setting it to take shots of helix while I sleep then I just wake up once to switch it over to Horsehead. I probably only lose an hour sleep when I’m it.

Thanks for the encouragement all I really like reading your posts and comments.

[ChrisV]

It's beautiful no matter how many times you see it !!!
I had my first go at it last year. I still look at it every now and then.

[Imme]

How much exposure time do you have on this so far?

[boz_m]

what scope did you use for this and did you use a reducer?

[RyanJones]

What a beautiful shot Gavin. I've had my first crack at Orion for the season. I went to give it another go about a week ago and couldn't get my mount setup right so I cracked the .... and packed it away lol.

Which scope were you using ?

This pic is incredibly inspiring.

[sil]

damn great shot already! but keep going with the data gathering while you're on a roll.still a target I need to get organised to grab I've got very little poor dslr data so far, its very noisy and faint at best so far for me, inspire me to get outside!

[Gavin1234]

Thanks guys, I’m using the SW Esprit 100 with no reducer. These are all 2 min subs with 50 flats 20 darks and 250 bias. I’ve got 3 hours total exposure time so far.

I’m having huge problems aligning the mount since I moved it this week. Didn’t even get to take a shot last night or tonight. For some reason im getting 4 different readings from 5 different compasses even though there all set to true north. So I can’t even get a rough alignment at the moment. I’m going to have to compare my old positioning to each compass to find out which one is accurate. Probably won’t have time to do that till the weekend so I’m really hoping the weather holds out.

I’m also really not happy with the way I’ve framed this. The flame nebula is to close to the left edge. So I will probably start again with 5 min subs once I’ve got the bugs ironed out again.