IC434 Horsehead Nebula Ha LRGB

[Startrek]

First capture of IC434 the Horse head Nebula in Ha LRGB at my Observatory under B3 Skies.
Captured over 4 short nights ( 28th and 29th December 2024 and 21st and 27th January 2025 ) Posted just Lum and Ha rendition about 3 to 4 weeks ago.
Summer so far on the East Coast of NSW has been plagued with cloudy nights with very limited windows of opportunity for imaging or observing.

Location : South Coast NSW , NexDome Observatory
New Moon Period
Seeing conditions fair to average ( Stars scintillating )
Skies : Bortle 3
Scope: 10" f5 Klaus Helmerich Carbon Fibre Newtonian
Mount : Skywatcher EQ8-R Pro
Imaging Camera : ZWO 2600MM , cooled to -10C , Gain 0 for LRGB and Gain 100 for Ha
ZWO 7 x 2" Filter Wheel ( Antlia LRGB filters and Antlia Ha 3nm Filter )
Orion 60mm guide scope with Helical focuser
ZWO ASI290MM Guide camera
Goto and Tracking EQMOD and Stellarium
Aquisition and Capture APT
Guiding PHD2 Multistar ( Guiding was poor and chasing the seeing 0.75 to 0.90 arc sec )
Data
Luminance 84 x 60 sec subs
Red 41 x 60 sec subs
Green 39 x 60 sec subs
Blue 43 x 60 sec subs
Ha 83 x 2 min subs
All subs dithered
Total integration approx 6 hours
Full Calibration Suite
Darks from Library
Flats for Ha LRGB
Flat Darks for Ha LRGB
Data sets reviewed , calibrated , stacked and aligned in ASTAP
Post processing in Startools V1.8 via Compose Module

Quite pleased with the result for only 6 hours of Data and also the star "Alnitak" when imaging with some decent aperture and focal length is a nightmare to tame. The reflection from its rays are really pronounced when using the Green and Blue filters. The Contrast module and Heal module in Startools did a great job again !!

Astrobin links below for full resolution…..,

https://www.astrobin.com/ywtuhq/

https://www.astrobin.com/c4w35y/

Attached original frame version and crop version >200Kb


Comments welcome

Thanks for Looking

Clear Skies
Martin

[Bodon]

Very nice Martin!

[TrevorW]

Very nice HH, Martin :)

[Startrek]

Thanks Steve
Even with the guiding see sawing around most nights with errors above 0.75 in RA , the stars ended up ok. The image scale on this beast is around 0.62 arc sec per pixel so well oversampled which allowed me to software Bin to 65% and improve SNR with limited data.
Martin

[Startrek]

Thanks Trev 👍

[Anth10]

Colour rendition turned out a treat Martin. Really like the contrast within the horse head itself. Star colours look good also.
Anth

[Startrek]

Thanks Anthony,
The green and blue filters have no defence against Alnitak , really hard to tame hence that left hand side suffered in exposing detail. I suppose for only 6 hours of data the result is pleasing. In fact it was nice just to finish it , the weather has been ordinary since November.

Cheers
Martin

[gregbradley]

That turned out very well. I wonder though if the HH itself could be sharper if the data will allow it.

Greg.

[Paul Haese]

Lovely colour balance Martin. Seeing might have been your enemy when collecting data. It's a really tough object to capture sharp data.

[strongmanmike]

What a great Horsey Martone, very pretty, nice work :thumbsup:

Mike

[Startrek]

Thanks Greg,
The quality and amount of data was restrictive.
I did use the SV Decon module in Startools (deconvolution) to deblur the image but to throttle it harder would only introduce more fine noise.
Those folk who use Pi with its BlurXterminator would have probably sharpened detail around the Horsehead itself but I prefer real deconvolution like in Startools SV Decon ( Richardson and Lucy, based ) not Deconvolution Instagram.
Cheers
Martin

[Startrek]

Thanks Paul,
Yes conditions weren’t ideal and would have loved 12 to 15 hours on this challenging target.
Next time ….

Martin

[Startrek]

Thanks Mike
Much appreciated
Glad to see you around again this year , Bravo !!
Martone

[AlexN]

Looking good mate! Seeing is indeed difficult this time of year - here in Brisbane we're battling with >90% humidity of a night, and despite being quite still, the atmosphere is almost like shooting through a fish tank...

[Startrek]

Thanks Alex,
Glad I finished the Horsey down south at my Obs under B3 skies as I’m back in Sydney now ready to battle B8 skies and neighbours floods blasting my yard. Thankfully I’m armed with my Antlia 3nm filters which are excellent.

Cheers
Martin

[Ryderscope]

Great work Martin. An excellent rendition of this fascinating area :thumbsup:

[Startrek]

Thanks Rodney
Much appreciated
Happy just to snag a few hours down at my Obs under B3
I was there from 26th Dec to 31st January and only scored 4 half nights with poor seeing.

Cheers
Martin