IC4592 Blue Horsehead Nebula

[joshman]

Again, I'm diving a little way into into the archive for this Image.

Taken much earlier in the year with the ASI071MC, I present the Blue Horsehead Nebula. This beautiful reflection/dark nebula complex is an extremely widefield target. It barely fits inside the field of view of the 200mm lens.

I made a previous attempt (https://astrob.in/k29xe7/0/) earlier in the year, but I wasn't happy with the composition, or processing. I went for a lot more integration time on this attempt, and I used an aperture mask to stop the lens down to f/4, and to give the 4-point diffraction spikes. Even still are a lot of image artifacts throughout the image that can only be fixed by using better optics - but that is a problem for future Josh.

C&C is very welcome and, as usual, click Here to to see it, and the capture details, on AstroBin (https://astrob.in/2phhvr/0/).

https://cdn.astrobin.com/thumbs/NjQ2B_un8j2G_1824x0_h95U4-PK.jpg

(for some reason i can't add attachments?)

[Dave882]

Well I think you’re a very harsh critic cause that’s a splendid image. Without getting the magnifier out everything looks really tight, great definition in the dust structure and beautiful colour in the reflection nebula. Gotta be really happy with that result well done!!!

[strongmanmike]

A lovely soft (ie delicate) blue horsey that Josh :thumbsup:

Mike

[Startrek]

Josh,
Gee can I have some of your sky up at Coffs
You’ve posted so many great images in the past 6 months or so and all with loads and loads of data too , lucky you with all those clear nights
Another beautiful subtle image and a nice feature with those diffraction spikes
Those 071MC’s are great cameras, you don’t see to many posts these days with folk using them , more so the 294MC and 2600MC
My only observation is the blue dust and gas looks a bit on the purple, mauve side (I’m usually guilty of that blue / purple colour )
Other than that , a cracker of an image
Well done !!
Cheers
Martin

[joshman]

Thanksfor the kind words Martin. I had a VERY good autumn/Early Winter in Coffs Harbour (no such luck for the last 2 months). The seemingly endless clear nights afforded me a lot of opportunity to go pretty deep on all my targets, and to capture a lot of them. I actually had this setup as a secondary rig, more as an experiment than anything, but it worked out quite well. I ended up with nearly 20 hours of data for this target - 14.5hrs of 300s exposures (this image), 4.5hrs of 120s exposure and a about an hour of 60s exposures. I'm going to stack the whole lot together and reprocess from scratch at some point.
My first attempt (https://www.astrobin.com/k29xe7/) at this target had some pretty bad looking 8 sided diffraction spikes from the lens aperture blades. So I designed and 3d printed an f/3.5 aperture mask with a cross shaped spider to try to hide them, and provide a more pleasing image.
I've not used the 071 all that much, and I have the typical sensor frosting issue, but I do enjoy using an OSC, especially for these kinds of targets.
I've noticed the slight purple tinge as well, I'll need to revisit the processing for this and I need to pull my thumb out and actually use my colour calibrated monitor for processing.



Thanks Mike! I'm not usually into capturing these dusty reflection Nebula, but I'm very pleased with how this turned out overall. I do need to pay them more attention though, especially if my summer weather keeps giving me all this grief; I seem pretty destined to only getting the autumn/winter skies.




Thanks for the kind words Dave! Just about all the stars have a distinct triangular shape pointing towards the centre, not sure how to fix this with a camera lens. As a whole though, I'm enjoying the aesthetic, and despite the stars, I think this may end up getting printed.