Had a go the other morning at the Horsehead, the nebula which first got me interested in astrophotography after seeing some images on the web.
I was packing up after a session on the Helix and saw Orion just coming up over the neighbour's place. Set the camera going and went to bed. The first five images were okay, but it was fairly low on the horizon. Unfortuneately the next five images were smeared with cloud.
Lacks detail among other things, and I think I have to start using flats. Will try for some more images this morning at a lower ISO.
5 X 10 mins @ ISO 1600 with ICNR. Tak Sky 90 with flattener/reducer @ F4.6. Hutech modded Canon 450D.
Looks lovely, you got some great data, and converted it nicely.
I would like to see the speed drop down to under 400 personally, make a smoother image. But still looks good.
Very nice Craig! perhaps a bit heavy on the red? (the modded DSLR images I've seen almost always come out a bit red) Mind you, thats all personal taste.
As Theo mentioned, it is some great data you have there!! definitely something to be proud of!
If only it were 1920x1080 and set as my desktop background
Great image Craig - nice amount of detail and smoothness for your 50mins worth.
As others have said, a bit heavy on the red. Can you balance it out in PS or is this going to be the curse of the mod!?
Everything I've seen that you've done with the Tak has really impressed me.
Cheers
Doug
Very nice image of a dificult target. Dropping the ISO will require a lot more subs of probably longer exposure. I think you have done a great job of processing this one. A little less on the red and lift the backgound darkness a little and one great image well done.
Thanks all for the kind comments. I will definitely have another go at processing the material as I didn't shoot anymore last night because of the moon. Was going to try a lower ISO as Theo and Frank suggested.
Will try and reprocess without so much red. I'm trying not to alter the colour balance during processing but maybe I have to.
With your comments, had another go at reprocessing in CS3 without touching the colour balance, but using curves less aggressively. Hope this looks more natural.
Looks good Craig, this is a target that I am yet to get an image that I am happy with. I'll have to wait 'till it rises earlier for me to have another crack at it as I have an extensive industrial area just a few kms to the east of me, huge mercury vapour sky glow .
Very nice first attempt at the Horsehead. Still a red bias there - try opening all the colour histograms (window/histogram) then use levels or curves to pull back the red histogram into line.
The Flame nebula is more a yellow and there are patches of blue reflection neb in the area as well. The horse itself is black.
With modded DSLRs you can set custom white balance so you don't have to pull back the red so much each time you process images from one.
Get an 18% photographic grey card from a camera shot and take a shop of that in sunlight around midday and set it as the custom white balance.
Great pic Craig especially for your first one cheers 
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