The Horsehead Nebula 10 hours 30 minutes now with cropped and high res versions [Archive]

gregbradley

05-01-2013, 09:00 PM

I took about 25 hours of data for this one. My mount developed a spike in the PE which meant about 5 or 6 hours was lost. The rest was from an earlier time and it was too rotated to be used.

Software Bisque sent me a new worm for my PMX mount and coupled with the latest firmware I was able to do a very accurate polar alignment as well as an accurate and working PEC. Guiding with the SBIG STi guider and MMOAG tracking was essentially perfect.

10 hours and 30 minutes of Ha LRGB images. AstroPhysics 140 scope (so sharp and wow what a focuser), PMX mount, FLI Proline 16803, Astrodon filters, SBIG STi and MMOAG guiding, Tak 4 inch flattener at my dark site observatory. I had a few nights of excellent seeing so the star sizes on some of the data were very tight.

http://upload.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/148169375/original large

http://upload.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/148169375/large regular

Greg.

Octane

05-01-2013, 11:01 PM

Truly exceptional, Greg!

My only gripe would be the composition, but, I'm being a stickler. :)

Good to see some new work from you. I hope to get back into it this year, too.

H

jjjnettie

05-01-2013, 11:13 PM

Super duper!!

gregbradley

06-01-2013, 12:46 AM

Thanks H. Too low? I was wanting to frame the upper part of the neb as well. It shows up well in the Ha only but not so much in the colour.
I'll be imaging galaxies again shortly. I cleaned my CDK and installed a baffle kit that should improve its performance.

Thanks JJJ. Its been a while since I've done an astro image so its nice to get one finished.

Greg.

PRejto

06-01-2013, 12:58 AM

Looks exceptional Greg! Bravo.

David Fitz-Henr

06-01-2013, 01:39 AM

That looks excellent Greg - great colours! I'm currently collecting image data for this object as well so this will be helpful to benchmark my processing against.

gregbradley

06-01-2013, 09:24 AM

Thanks Peter. With the improved tracking, the great seeing and the good autoguiding I was getting some really sharp images which was exciting.

I am sure it will be a blockbuster. The main thing with this object is avoiding the stray light or reflections from the bright stars in the scene and just outside of it.

Greg.

sjastro

06-01-2013, 10:32 AM

Very fine image Greg.

Regards

Steven

Jen

06-01-2013, 11:34 AM

Giddy up horsey :D nice pic Greg :thumbsup:

gregbradley

06-01-2013, 01:10 PM

Thanks very much Steven.

Hehe, its a classic object. Cheers.

Greg.

Stevec35

06-01-2013, 02:18 PM

Looks very good Greg. I should have one myself to match the recent Ha effort soon.

Cheers

Steve

MortonH

06-01-2013, 02:22 PM

I found that if I chopped off the top of the image above the bright star you end up with an aspect ratio around 3:2 and it looks very nice. Just my preference of course. The image is stunning regardless!

leon

06-01-2013, 02:45 PM

Beautiful Greg, actually although some don't agree, i prefer images that are not smack bang centered, they look much better a bit off side, so to speak, and yours is spot on, well done indeed.

Leon

RickS

06-01-2013, 03:17 PM

Good to see you imaging again, Greg. A great result!

Larryp

06-01-2013, 04:21 PM

Lovely image, Greg!

johnnyt123

06-01-2013, 08:38 PM

Spectacular!!!!!!

gregbradley

06-01-2013, 10:15 PM

Thanks Steve. I look forward to your image.

Yes I should do a crop version. I have a luminance image that shows off the Ha and detail in the top half of the image but in the combination of all the LRGB and Ha it seemed to lose some of that detail. So a crop version makes sense.

Thanks Leon.

Yes its been a while. I hope to do more regular images. I've got the PMX humming now.

Thanks Larry.

Thanks Johnny. I figured the Horsehead is such a classic area it was worth some extra effort.

Greg.

Rigel003

06-01-2013, 10:32 PM

Lovely image, Greg. I quite like the portrait orientation. Gives a different perspective on the region.

strongmanmike

06-01-2013, 11:23 PM

Excellent Greg, vibrant and lovely stars, nice work indeed mate :thumbsup:

I am hanging to image again...my laptop crashed on NYE :sadeyes:

Mike

gregbradley

07-01-2013, 08:02 AM

Thanks very much for that. I think I'll post a 2nd version cropped in the more traditional framing as well.

Thanks Mike. Its been a while for me.
You shouldn't dance on top of your laptop Mike!
Bummer.
Greg.

Paul Haese

07-01-2013, 01:35 PM

Nice image Greg. I really like the overall image. Colour is good and saturation is rather nice. Control over the brighter stars seems to work quite well too. Well done.

marc4darkskies

07-01-2013, 01:49 PM

Yes, a lovely image indeed Greg! :thumbsup: The composition is different but I don't mind it.

A higher res version maybe? :D

Cheers, Marcus

gregbradley

07-01-2013, 04:27 PM

Thanks Paul. I am particularly happy with the tiny star sizes the AP produced. There are some really tiny stars in there. The advantage of tuning the PMX with a new worm and the AP's wonderfully sharp lens.

Thanks Marcus. I could post an even larger size. The beauty of the AP140 and the PMX combo is there is very little image shear and its sharp down to pixel level. More sharp than any other scope I have used.

Greg.

gregbradley

07-01-2013, 04:28 PM

http://upload.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/148209969 regular size

http://upload.pbase.com/image/148209969 crop version large image

http://upload.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/148210365/original crop high resolution image

http://www.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/148210128/original double cropped

http://upload.pbase.com/image/148210303 Ha image

I think I like the crop version the best. Its the more traditional framing and I did a bit more star work, selective sharpening (it was able to take more).

Greg

batema

07-01-2013, 07:29 PM

Hi Greg,
Beautiful image. I was wondering what length your exposures were ( eg 10 min lum) and also how do you go about dealing with the bright star as when I have had a crack at processwing this image (badly) the star gets such a massive halo around it that just wrecks any visual look. Fantastic image once again.

Mark

gregbradley

07-01-2013, 09:27 PM

Thanks Mark.

The 16803 has deep wells - 100,000 electrons. That helps. Not too long a sub probably helps. But the main thing I would say, most likely, is the excellent baffling in the AP140 scope.

Also, I did angle the frame a tad to remove a stray reflection coming from one of the other Orion bright stars top left that virtually disappeared when it was angled just a little bit. So those baffles worked really well.
I did not do any special processing on Alnitak. That is how it came out of the camera pretty much.

Greg.

Rod771

08-01-2013, 12:51 AM

Wow!!!! :eyepop:

Well done Greg

gregbradley

08-01-2013, 11:01 AM

Thanks Rod!

Greg.

CoolhandJo

08-01-2013, 11:20 AM

Lovely. Colours detail faming etc all spot on

gregbradley

08-01-2013, 11:26 AM

Cheers Paul.

Greg.

Gem

09-01-2013, 11:00 PM

Love the colour! A classic look! :)

gregbradley

09-01-2013, 11:34 PM

Thanks Grant!
Some of these classic objects are worth the investment in time it takes to accumulate enough data to put something together.

Greg.

alpal

10-01-2013, 12:18 AM

It's a great image.
There is however more detail in the curtain in the Ha image than has
come through in the final image.

Top work.

gregbradley

10-01-2013, 09:44 AM

Thanks. Yes I noticed that. I think it seems to wash out a bit in the mix. Any suggestions about how to increase that curtain rippling effect? I saw the same thing in Steve's image.

Perhaps a red + Ha composite channel rather than a Ha layered in set to red and blue colour channels may preserve more detail. Perhaps not.

Greg.

alpal

10-01-2013, 05:23 PM

Yes - maybe try to make a fake luminance layer out of the Ha data.
Use curves on it to increase the contrast - exaggerate it a bit.
Also maybe sharpen it a little.

Try & blend it as a luminance but also soft light & other blending modes onto you final pic & see what happens.

alan meehan

11-01-2013, 12:22 AM

Greg this is such a beautiful image very sharp indeed,and lovely colours
your time spent has been worth the effort
AL

kustard

11-01-2013, 08:37 AM

Oh very nice indeed :)

I like the Ha image too, you can really see the detail in the nebula.

gregbradley

11-01-2013, 12:25 PM

I can give that a go but I have already done that in previous steps and discarded the Ha as luminosity layer as all it does is give salmon Ha areas and damage the colour saturation. Sometimes you can get a gain with it doing that. The other approach is to make a Ha+red layer and use that for the red channel or perhaps Ha + luminance layer as a luminance layer. I can experiment with these but not confident its going to go anywhere.

Thanks Al. The crop works best.

Thanks for that. The Ha could have been sharper as I imaged it in 2x2 binning to improve the signal to noise ratio. Its quite a dim target really.
Greg.

Ross G

11-01-2013, 08:39 PM

A beautiful Horse Head photo Greg.

One of the best.

Ross.

Ross G

11-01-2013, 08:41 PM

I love the BW Ha version.

Ross.

gregbradley

11-01-2013, 08:48 PM

Thanks Ross.

Ha does an appealling aspect to it.

I hope to put together another image shortly if the wind stays down.

Greg.

naskies

13-01-2013, 02:21 AM

Great images! I'm a big fan of the Ha version too.

gregbradley

13-01-2013, 10:13 AM

Thanks Dave. Ha is its own style of image for sure.

Greg.

astronobob

13-01-2013, 03:50 PM

Thats a class Act Greg, inspirational to many including myself, obviousely plenty of exposure time benefits this target ! Great Show !

gregbradley

13-01-2013, 07:48 PM

Thanks for that. I decided a while ago that I aim now for long exposures on each object I image. Not always easy. I just had 3 clear nights and didn't manage to get much.

Greg.

E_ri_k

13-01-2013, 08:07 PM

That's stunning! Well done.
Erik

midnight

13-01-2013, 11:03 PM

A most enjoyable image Greg. One could study that image for a long time and definitely one of the gems of the night sky.

Thanks for showing us.

Darrin...

gregbradley

14-01-2013, 12:09 AM

Thanks Erik. The Horsehead area is one of the classics in the night sky.

Cheers Darrin. This AP140 is an amazingly sharp scope.

Greg.

iceman

14-01-2013, 06:32 AM

Wow Greg, I think that's your best image yet.

Stunning! The crop version is definitely better.

It's now IOTW (http://www.iceinspace.com.au).

gregbradley

14-01-2013, 09:33 AM

Fantastic! Thanks Mike.

Greg.

spymaster

14-01-2013, 09:30 PM

Amazing! Quite an achievement!

gregbradley

14-01-2013, 10:48 PM

Thanks very much Matt.

Greg.

DJT

14-01-2013, 10:52 PM

Congrats on the IOTW. Well deserved as thats a stunning image

gregbradley

14-01-2013, 10:56 PM

Thanks for that!

Greg.

SkyViking

15-01-2013, 08:52 AM

Wonderful image, definitely one of your best yet. And great to see so much detail also close to Alnitak. Impressive effort indeed, congratulations :)

gregbradley

15-01-2013, 09:02 AM

Thanks very much Rolf.
Greg.

spacezebra

15-01-2013, 09:20 PM

Stunning Greg!!!

Cheers Petra d.

RobF

16-01-2013, 12:38 AM

Top shelf stuff Greg. Great image.

gregbradley

16-01-2013, 03:57 PM

Thank very much Petra.

Cheers Rob.

Greg.

swannies1983

16-01-2013, 07:54 PM

Absolutely love this one. Great framing. A real 3D look in some places.

I noticed some green-chocolate looking nebula in my picture and was going to process it out. However, you clearly show it in the same places as me so I left it in.

Well done on the IOTW!