A (flaming) horse is a horse of course...

[pfitzgerald]

Hi Folks

This is my first attempt at imaging the Flame and Horse Head Nebulae. It was shot at Kinglake on 4/11 using the equipment outlined below and consists of 16 x 5 minute exposures at 800 ISO. Stacking and initial stretch was done in Nebulosity 3.0 with further processing done using CS5.

As always any thoughts and suggestions for improving the image (or future images:)) would be much appreciated. (I have three in mind but will see if you all concurr).

Paul

[scagman]

Hi Pual,

Very nice image, looks very good. You've got very nice round stars too.
And I like the color too.

Cheers

[pfitzgerald]

Thanks for that John - polar alignment and tracking that night were pretty good. My first time being able to get 5.0 minute subs.

The round stars were achieved in Nebulosity when I alignmed the light subs using the translation and rotation setting. I also had an Orion x0.83 focal reducer/flattener in the imaging train.

I should have taken some shorter exposure subs for the over bloated central star as at present it dominates an otherwise very pleasing first attempt at this DSO.

Paul

PS John I just noticed you're at Kinglake West. This image was taken at a mate's place off the Old Glenburn Rd in Kinglake Central.

[scagman]

Hi Pual,
That bright star (Alnitak) is a bugger. I thought you controlled it well.
I tend to get a lot of blue fringing arund it.

I live about 15k's from Old Glenburnie rd. about 10k's from whittlesea. You would have very nice dark skies out there.

Keep an eye on the star parties forum as I try and have a session on or around new moon if your interested in coming along.

Cheers

[pfitzgerald]

Will do John.

PM sent.

Paul

[lazjen]

Quite nice. That Alnitak is certainly distracting, but everything else looks good.

[pfitzgerald]

Thanks Chris.

[kosh]

Nice image Paul. :thumbsup:

I recently tried this one with 20 x 240 sec. Subs but yours looks much better, I may be doing something wrong.
I live fairly close to kinglake myself actually, might have to make my way up there for some imaging too :) I'm guessing the light pollution is reduced enough to make it worthwhile ?

[pfitzgerald]

Thanks for that 'Kosh' - and yes it's certainly worth the 45 minute drive to get up there. Plenty of clear sky - especially out to the North.

I wish I'd written down all the steps I used, and their order, in the processing as I tried a few new things including colour match and layer masks after I'd watched a few mini tutorials on YouTube. Come to think of it I should have saved everyhting as PS file before flattening the image etc. That way I'd have a record of what I did. And if I'd framed the image a bit better - cue panning to the right a bit it would have come out really nice!

Sometimes I think that you need to be a Vorlon when it comes to processing images of DSOs - they both exceddingly enigmatic!

Paul

[kosh]

Yeah I know what you mean Paul,
we have all probably seen the same videos on youtube but somehow it seems so much easier for them, i suppose it's better quality data ( compared to mine anyway ).

I think I will get up there at some stage, i'll see if the new moon has clear skies associated with it.

[Gruffalo]

You are posting this in the wrong astrophotography forum - definitely earned the Intermediate-advanced badge with that shot :)

[pfitzgerald]

Thanks for that Gruffalo. :-)

[alpal]

I agree.
Post that in the Deep Space section:
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=7

It's a top image & in such a short time.

cheers
Allan

[pfitzgerald]

Thanks Alan - will do sometime tomorrow. :-)

Doing some 'homework' at the moment and the school year hasn't even started!

Paul