Amateur attempt at Orion, Horse Head and Sombrero

[johnnyt123 (John)]

Hi guys....

I am still a newbie to deep space astrophotography...

These pics are not that great but i have placed these here to basically ask for help and receive some valuable feedback and advice as to how to improve with deep space imaging.......

so here we go...

taken on 31/1/2013
from sydney

equipment:
Heq5 pro mount
celestron autoguider
110mm WO Magrez doublet
0.8x field flattener
Orion StarShoot Pro V2 deep space colour imager CCD

For orion nebula had 5 exposures with a total of 16min
for horsehead only 1 exposure with 8 min (with heavy post processing in photoimpact)
for sombrero 3 exposures for a total of 5 min. (if you look really really close you can see sombrero somewhere in the middle)

Stacked in DSS and i dont know why it wouldnt accept the dark frames i had....
such a headache....

anyways please say what you think and what i may be doing wrong.....

thanks

Johnny

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

For some reason, mine is failing with darks similar to yours. Still haven't been able to resolve it. Your second image is nice.

[johnnyt123 (John)]

Thanks Malcolm....

its frustrating...when things just dont work quite as you hope...

[wendy1 (Wendy)]

I agree. I think the second image is amazing.

[Ross G]

Hi Johhny,

Nice shots, especially the M42 photo.

With good polar alignment you can push things to 5 minute and even 10 minute exposures.

Good luck.

Ross.