My Horsehead Nebula

[glend]

It is early season for the Horsehead but Atmos inspired me to get out there at 2:30am and start on this target, and to get the Flame Nebula in the frame as well. The quarter moon was only 20 degrees away from the front of the scope, and even with an additional shield extension it is bound to have some effect. I was shooting through my Bresser 152mm f5 Achro (which does still have some field curvature). I was testing various exposures and camera settings initially, but was so pleased with the results I produced an image to share. This uncropped image is obviously Ha, and consists of 11x180sec subs, and 7x300sec subs, registered and stacked in DSS with relevant Darks and Bias frames. I produced a combined image here, processing was completed in Photoshop CC.

I was happy to get resonable definition in the curtain wall behind the Horsehead, and look forward to returning to it when more time is available in coming months, to complete a NB colour rendition with more data (and through my new APO which is on the airplane now)!

Astrobin details page:

http://www.astrobin.com/265244/

Full Screen: http://www.astrobin.com/full/265244/0/

Note thumbnail quality is poor due to compression for forum, look at the Astrobin image if you have time.

[Atmos]

Really nice Glen, especially for a tad over an hour of data. Yours looks a lot more natural than what mine does, I was a bit aggressive with the gradient removal I think. Made everything "pop" but wasn't Respecting the Light :)

I am so jealous of your FOV though!

[SimmoW]

Congrats on drawing your first Curtain Glen! Can't wait to try it myself soon. A good start there.

[SimmoW]

And Oi, what new scope are you getting?!

[glend]

TS Photoline APO 115m f6.95, 800mm fl, with TS flattener, and separate reducer/corrector to f5.5. 663mm fl. Stuck in Customs at Botany as they don't seem to work over the weekend.

[multiweb]

Very smooth. Great image scale too. :thumbsup: