War Horse - The Blue Horsehead Nebula, IC4592

[Ross G]

Hello,

Another photo from my trip to Coonabarabran last July....sorry I'm so slow!

It is the Blue Horsehead Nebula, IC4592, in Scorpius.

This was taken with my widefield setup consisting of a Nikon 180mm F2.8 lens on a QHY8L OSC CCD.

Although the bulk of this image was photographed in July, I have made an "artistic" addition of late September when Mars was in the region.;)

190 minutes total exposure at F4 consisting of 5, 10 and 20 minute exposures.

The photo is here http://smu.gs/15I70sg

What do you think?

Thanks for looking.

Ross.

NIKON 180mm F2.8 Lens
QHY8L OSC CCD
Vixen Sphinx Mount

50mm finderscope as guidescope
QHY5 guide camera

Guiding with PHD
Capture wirth Ezycap
Processing with Deep Sky Stacker & Photoshop CS2

[Stevec35]

Looks good to me Ross. Maybe a creative use of curves might make it "pop" a bit more but it's fine as is.

Cheers

Steve

[Rod771]

Arrh... Every time is see IC4603 (bottom right) it reminds me of IISAC.

Looks good Ross! Nice idea to include Mars when it was making an appearance.

Well done!

[Placidus]

Hi, Ross,

Lovely photo. I am guessing from the position of Mars that you took the "Mars" frame just before dawn on the 22nd of September. As well as the cone-shaped 4592 around nu scorpii, I can also see the rho ophiuchii complex at bottom right, M80 as a yellowish diffuse blob, and IC 4601 as a small blue patch with a pair of snake eyes.

Some of the star colours are possibly a tiny bit bluer than the catalogue would suggest, but I realize that isn't the point of your shot, which is the beautiful reflection nebulosity. Nice.

Cheers,
Mike

[strongmanmike]

Nice work Ross, great framing of these faint buggers and your usual gaseous look too :thumbsup:

Mike

[multiweb]

Another great field Ross. Good stuff. :thumbsup:

[Geoff45]

Beautiful Ross. Something that's on my to-do list once I get the wide field stuff sorted.
Geoff

[sjastro]

Nice image Ross.

Steven

[marc4darkskies]

Lovely image Ross!

Cheers, Marcus

[tilbrook@rbe.ne]

Lovely colours Ross!:thumbsup:

Must have a decent crack at this area.

Cheers,

Justin.

[RickS]

Very nice, Ross!

[Ross G]

Glad you like it Steve and thanks for the advice.
I'm still "feeling" my way with the processing of camera lens photos.



Thanks Rod.

Mars helped "balance" the composition of the photo.

[Ross G]

Glad you like it Mike. Thanks.

I am finding that with camera lenses, the composition is by far the most important factor. Unlike with a telescope where it's the technical quality.
Chromatic aberrations is a problem with this and most camera lenses and contributes to blue/purple stars and halos.
I'm still trying to work out how to minimise it.

Thank you for pointing out the other objects and you were "spot on" with the date.



Thanks Mike. The composition was mainly luck as I didn't know what I had till I processed the photo.
Very pleased that you like it!



Thanks Marc. I'm enjoying the camera lenses more and more.

[Ross G]

Thanks Geoff.
Once you connect your new "big chip" camera to your Televue you're going to have one awesome wide field imaging machine.
Looking forward to the photos!



Thank you Steven.



Glad you like it Marcus.
Thanks.

[Ross G]

Thanks Justin.
Your 8 inch will capture some beautiful objects in this region.



Thank you Rick.

[atalas]

A tight composition Ross but it's an awesome image with great dust and colour mate!well done

[Ross G]

Thanks Louie. Glad you like it.

Next time I might try it with the 100mm lens.