horsehead with 6" newt and coma corrector

[Garyh]

Hi all again,
Well at last up here we got a few nights of Ok seeing before the heat and smoke returned with a southerly change.
Recieved my new coma corrector just in time to image M42 and the horsehead region..
Image is a stack of 13x8 min at iso 800 with 6" f/5.6 newt with coma corrector and 300d. 3 darks taken. Stacked in deepsky stacker.
Seeing was average but rather clear when the haze settled.
I am quiet pleased with the outcome considering the seeing and also it was warm which makes for noiser images...
Picture is around 300k in size.
Any and all comments welcome.

http://garysdeepsky.awardspace.com/latest-3.htm

Cheers Gary

[leon]

Nice one Gary, looks great.

Cheers Leon

[Striker (Tony)]

Really nice Gary

Nicely composed and proccessed

Only comment is the stars are bit square.

[richardo (Rich)]

Hi Gary, very well done!!
I think I might have to get my 300D out for a space walk soon when your getting great looking one shot colour images like this!!

I have to agree, brighter stars are a bit square.... I'd say it would be from pushing curves or contrast or saturation.
There's a few masking routines you can do in Photoshop to over come this a bit.
I use to suffer from square stars with my VC200L when I pushed too hard.

Other than, great work!!

Cheers
Rich

[Ric]

Hi Gary, lovely image that you have captured. the Horsehead stands out wonderfully.

great imaging

[h0ughy (David)]

a little aside (great image too) got a shot of the scope?

[Garyh]

Thanks Leon, Tony, Rich, Ric and Houghy! for the kind comments...Your right there Tony, I have to work abit on the stars as pushing the levels etc does make the brighter stars square. I might do them seperately on another layer and see if I can improve them.
Yeah Rich the good old DSLR can get some nice images, but its no SBIG or Starlightxpress. I love using the camera but the noise levels really bother me sometimes and when removing the noise you also remove alot of fine detail as well...One day I wil get one of those babies you have..... have to save a lot of pocket money..
Houghy heres 2 pics of the scope. First one is when it was completed ready for its first test on my old eq5 mount..The second was only taken earlier this week after a lot of mods (rings, primary cell,secondary..etc) on my Gm-8..
I certianly learned heaps about designing a newt for imaging!!!!
Thanks Guys....

[RB (Andrew)]

Gary that's a great shot, nicely composed and processed.

Well done.

[spearo (Frank)]

Gary,
very nice work there. The HH and nebula are nice and sharp with great detail.
beautiful
well done
frank

[richardo (Rich)]

Hi again Gary,
just checked out the images of your home built scope,
Excellent work.
You must update your site with details.... please!

It's a great project to build your own scope for sure and at a fraction of the cost of what you would buy, if at all you can get what you want.!
As for imaging, it's definately more specialised to build what you need.

JFIS, what material did you have your tube made from or made yourself?

Good stuff!!

Cheers

Rich

[EzyStyles (Eric)]

beautifully done gary coming from a 6" scope! gee's you maxed it.

[Garyh]

Thanks Andrew, Frank, Rich and Eric! I`m quiet happy with the scope for its size!
Rich, the tube was rolled and welded locally out of 1.7mm aluminium. They did a rather crappy job of it, had to take it back and make them straighten it out twice and took alot of work to get it close to round and smooth. I shall find someone that specializes in this sort of thing next time. But have to admit its solid!!!
Try to update my website soon, its rather time consuming and finding spare time gets hard sometimes...all a learning experience..but getting there...
Cheers and thanks everyone..
Gary