Horsehead and Flame 1hr 16mins exp

[stardust steve]

Imaged on the 22nd and 28th of Oct 2012 with a Canon 500D, SW ED80 and EQ3 mount for a total of 1 hour and 16 mins exposure, with 30 second images unguided.
This involved early awakenings, which proceeded late nights resulting in Zombism for the following days. :D
I encountered quite a few hurdles along the way, from setting up the mount right through to processing the final stacked image.
:)

[pluto]

looking good :thumbsup:

[LewisM]

Good stuff - better than my Horsie!

[stardust steve]

Cheers Hugh :thumbsup:

[Larryp]

Nice image!:thumbsup:

[stardust steve]

Thanks Lewis. I found it a challenge to process and realize it needs a lot of data to bring out that curtain.
Looking forward to adding some more subs to this. Although i don't think my computer is...i failed many attempts at stacking all the lights, darks and flats in RAW format. DSS kept crashing in the final stacking stages.
I don't think my computer has the processing power to deal with RAW only stacks so i had to format all of the files to TIFF and it worked....still took about 5 hours to stack:rolleyes::confused2:

So many more things needed to add to the astro list:)

[stardust steve]

Cheers Laurie

[Forgey]

Beautiful Steve! I cant wait to give the horsie a go myself.

[LewisM]

I had to go to 8 GB ram to do it successfully, even then if ANYTHING else is running, it can run out of memory! Shame DSS is NOT 64 bit - would make a WORLD of difference.

Also, consider downsizing your RAW too - use medium format or small format.

Personally, I have given up on Darks - I just let my Canon 5D MkII do it's own long exposure noise reduction. Works better than any dark subtraction DSS does IMHO. Sure, it makes a 5 minute sub a 10 minute turn over, but I can wait - usually ;) Get about 5 subs of each a night, and keep adding every successive night

[LewisM]

See what I mean - my "best effort" on the Horsehead so far, using my ED100 and 5 subs of 5 minutes. NOT hapy yet - needs a tonne more light. Was hoping to try tonight with a LPF and 8 min subs at 1250 ISO (rather than my usual 500 ISO)

Ah I love refractors... no diffraction spikes :)

[ourkind]

Wow that's excellent Steve well done man! :thumbsup:

[scagman]

Great shot steve, also I really like the way you have presented it aswell.

Cheers

[E_ri_k]

That looks really good! Nice work :)
Erik

[stardust steve]

Thanks Paula. Glad you like it :)

[stardust steve]

Thanks John, Carlos and Erik. I'm having a great time pushing my little mount to it's limits. I still think i can get a bit more out of it. :)
Would love to get consistent 1 min subs with it soon :thumbsup:

[stardust steve]

Yeah, a PC dedicated for Astro might be in order i think. Just something basic but with a heap of RAM etc. I know someone who builds them so might look into it.

If i am going to be adding any more data to my current images, i am going to have to find a way that my laptop can handle. I have never really heard about downsizing RAW files, will look into that also.
Thanks for the tip:thumbsup:

Your horsey is coming along nicely. It will love all those extra images that you are adding to it.

[rcheshire]

Nice one Steve. And inspiration for the upcoming Snake Valley gathering.