widefield horsehead with QHY9

[Phil Hart]

seems like a popular target at this time of year, so apologies if you've seen one too many horseheads by now..

http://philhart.com/gallery/Astrophotography/Nebulae/Horsehead_Nebula.jpg.html

nothing high resolution about this view, but with 6.6 hours at f3.3 it's pretty deep. this is my first serious result with the QHY9 but i'm happy with how it's performing now.

phil

[multiweb]

:eyepop: Wow! Best wide field HH I've ever seen. Amazing stuff. :prey2:

[Paul Haese]

Very nice image Phil. Love the tendrils just below and to the left of the blue nebula.

[jjjnettie]

How can you have too much of the Horsehead region????
Stunning image. Thanks for taking the time to share it with us.

[Octane]

Phil,

Superb.

Most beautiful star colours, also.

Regards,
Humayun

[DavidU]

:prey2: Corker !

[CoolhandJo]

Lovely! Great depth to this image! The star spikes are the best I have seen!

[Phil Hart]

thanks folks.. glad you like it!



yeah.. i'm loving the whole region but between the blue nebula and flame especially. previous attempts with DSLRs have barely hinted at all that dusty region below the horsehead. definitely happy with the move to CCD imaging now :)



I had to work to remove some green and other false colours around the mid-range stars. a bit of star size reduction in ImagesPlus and Median filter on the RGB layer in Photoshop has kept it under control while leaving the real blues and yellows of the strongly coloured stars. the end result seems ok.



hmm.. generally i like the effect, but i actually wish i could control the main spike from alnitak a bit better, rather than it fanning out so much as it leaves the frame. the epsilon astrograph has really chunky spider vanes (very well constructed) but the spikes are pretty enormous as a result. despite having collimated it as best i could, i seem to always find one spike stronger than the others. the image centre was also slightly shifted between the two nights, which meant a small amount of relative rotation of the scope to sky, which doubled up/blurred the spikes a little as well.

looks great on the pleiades though ;)

[AlexN]

Very nice indeed... Lovely colour and fantastic detail

[iceman]

Is there nothing you can't do?
Stunning!

[marc4darkskies]

You can never see too many horseheads Phil!!! ... especially when they're this good :thumbsup::thumbsup: Very nice job!

Cheers, Marcus

[suma126]

THATS BRILLIANT. VERY SHARP IMAGE THERE :thumbsup:

[Robbie]

:sadeyes::bowdown:

[RobF]

What an amazing image! I think I just spent 10 mins exploring pieces of the vista I've never really paid attention too - like how the gas has been pushed away near Alnitak. Beautiful inspiring work thanks Phil!

[strongmanmike]

If the three wise men from the Orient had openned up this image, they would have been mesmirised and never had found baby...?...Kevin :P

The diffraction spikes do look pretty cool in this composition too.

Mike

[Hagar]

Lovely image Phil. The detail from this little Tak is magnificent. Good to see you are using the camera.

[Tilt]

Spectacular! I love the detail in this image.

Michael

[bluescope]

Great image ... lots of details I've not seen before in the dust cloud below the Horse ... very well done !

:thumbsup:

[Martin Pugh]

Nicely processed Phil

You have done a great job of bringing out an area of nebulosity belonging to the flame nebula but beneath the huge brightness of Alnitak.
cheers
Martin

[RobF]

After another 10 looks at this, I think what draws me in is the detail in the roiling gas in the foreground. People often spend so much time on the HH and gas streamers behind that perhaps they overlook this. The effect is almost like soft pink/red CO2 spilling out over some kind of giant stage set. Beautiful.

And I love the huge diffraction spike on Alnitak. Just frames and sets the whole thing off very nicely. Just stunning.

[Peter Ward]

Very impressive. :thumbsup::thumbsup:

[AlexN]

Its less that people overlook it, and more that they do not obtain sufficient data to show it... Phil's telescope used to capture this image is fairly fast at F/3.3, that, coupled with a lot of exposure time has allowed him to show off the regions "hidden wonders"