The Witch Head Nebula repro

[gregbradley]

I imaged this one also during last weekend at my dark site observatory.

Its stll a bit low in the skies but I am happy with the result. Its an advancement on my previous effort.

TEC110 fluorite at F5.6, FLI Proline 16803, PMX mount, Vixen VMC95 guide scope and STi guider

http://www.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/152690444/large regular size

http://www.pbase.com/gregbradley/image/152690444/original large size

Greg.

[Larryp]

Looks excellent, Greg :thumbsup:

[Stevec35]

Looks good Greg although there seems to be a slight gradient there. Once again I can't see the large size as with one of your previous images. There must be something funny going on with my system.

Cheers

Steve

[gregbradley]

I don't think there is a gradient Steve. I looked at Rob Gendlers mosaic of this area this morning and there is a large area of dust/gas to the right of the Witch head and reflection neb to the top and left. There is also some below the right. Its an extensive area.
Greg.



Thanks Larry.

[IanP]

Dark site (observatory) sounds to me like DARK FORCE that must be helping you Greg to shoot these lovely images. Stunning!!!
#IP
:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thum bsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[gregbradley]

:lol: Yes the dark force is strong! Thanks Ian.

Greg.

[RickS]

Very nice Witch Head, Greg! It's a difficult one to process.

[gregbradley]

Thanks Rick. Yes it is an odd area with unusual colours, dust, gas. There's 2 super bright stars just out of the view of the image there as well which probably light all this stuff up but can easily interfere with the image.

Greg.

[cometcatcher]

I imagine Rigel must give some grief!

Going by your equipment, this must be one faint mutha to image.

[gregbradley]

The star to the right gave a bit of trouble. Its somewhat faint but not too bad. Its still a bit low. It comes up before Orion though.

Greg.

[PRejto]

Looks great Greg! I envy you your dark site.

Peter

[gregbradley]

Thanks Peter. The dark site certainly makes imaging easier.

Greg.

[Bassnut]

I like the wispiness . The star nebulosity gives a haunting sort of feel.

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Looks like there's some good depth to your Witch head Greg!:thumbsup:

Hard to do, mine always looks flat.

Cheers,

Justin.

[strongmanmike]

Ah The Blue Witch, gradient or not t'is very lovely :thumbsup:

Mike

[naskies]

Nice work, Greg. Looks like a puff of celestial smoke!

[gregbradley]

Thanks Fred. Its an odd object. Its a bit like CG4. That processes oddly as well.



Yes I know what you mean. It is a hard object as its so different.



Thanks Mike. I don't think there is a gradient but perhaps there is. It was taken at my dark site so no light pollution there but it was lower in the sky which is not ideal. I can see a mosaic coming up here when its higher. I checked against Rob Gendlers image and the object does change colour like mine along its length. Makes sense as its a reflection neb. A lot of the other images I have seen are usually only part of the neb not as much as this so the last section should look fairly uniform.




Thanks Dave. I looked it up, its a reflection nebula of dust and is reflecting light from Rigel.

Greg.

[gregbradley]

I processed the image again from early in the processing on up. I was getting almost identical results but there was some green gradient probably from air glow as the object was fairly low when it was imaged.

I have corrected this and perhaps this was what some were seeing as far as a gradient is concerned. The dangers of imaging something low and what to look for when you do!

Same links.

Greg.

[Ross G]

Hi Greg,

Great looking photo.

Excellent composition and very sharp.

I love the eerie blue-grey look.

Ross.

[gregbradley]

Thanks Ross.

In the near future I am likely to do a mosaic in this area. I might let it rise a bit more to make it easier.

Greg.

[Peter Ward]

Tough target. Nicely handled :thumbsup:

[Paul Haese]

I like the blue colouring and the galaxies showing in this scene. There are quite a few to check out. I like the expansive field of view too, showing a lot of this object. I don't think there is a gradient. I found when I imaged a portion of this object that my colouring looked consistently like what you have here but you have a little more saturation that I do. It's a tough object that likes plenty of integration time if one is using short subs (10 minutes or less) with a narrow aperture, so kudos for producing a pretty noise free image.

What I think detracts this image is the star shapes. The smaller images don't show any problems but the hi res image shows stars that are elongated to some degree or another over the entire field. It's particularly bad in the top left corner and that is what you see straight up when you open the image.

Like I said though, there is plenty to like. :)

[Elio]

well done ;)

[gregbradley]

Thanks very much Peter.




Cheers Elio.



Thanks Paul.

Yes the frailities of piggyback guide scope guiding.

I plan on tweaking the polar alignment again and doing a 300 point T-point model and using Protrack to help.

Also I need to install a support block system I used once at home with this setup as the focuser tube has flexure with the heavy Proline camera. Its a great camera but its very heavy and too heavy for this focuser. Yuri also makes a heavy camera ring to support the focuser.
Ideally I would use an OAG and an Atlas focuser and lock it all down. So part is tilt, part is guiding a bit weak and part is low in the sky where the seeing is poorer and the guiding not as good. Other objects higher up with the same setup gave better stars. It really was quite low when imaged.

Greg.