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Old 21-01-2014, 09:55 PM
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SkyViking (Rolf)
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In the Shadow of the Horsehead

Hi All,

Despite the intermittent clear skies lately I have now managed to finish the first proper image with my new 12.5" scope.
In order to assess the new scope's capabilities I chose a target slightly less obscure than normal: The Horsehead Nebula and NGC2023. Oh well, I guess one is not really an astrophotographer without an image of this classic under one's belt.

Link to full resolution image (3MB)

About the image:
The Horsehead Nebula (also known as Barnard 33) is without doubt one of the most recognized and fascinating objects in the sky. This iconic feature is formed by the sharp outline of a dark dust cloud, with a remarkable likeness to a horse's head, silhouetted against a brightly glowing patch of ionized Hydrogen (IC434) that is being energized by the hard ultraviolet radiation from nearby Sigma Orionis, a quintuplet star system lying just outside the top of the image.

I sought to process this image to show not only the Horsehead silhouette but also the details of the dense dust cloud (Lynds 1630 molecular cloud) from which it emerges.
The background behind the Horsehead glows with a soft diffuse reddish/pinkish light because of strong emission by spectral lines from ionized Hydrogen. Visible in the foreground is the large looming shadow being cast by the Horsehead's tower of dust, appearing as a dark fan-shape down towards the bottom centre-left, intercepted on its left edge by the intricate bright blue reflection nebula NGC2023. In contrast to the red emission glow, the reflection nebula is caused by light from the nebula's bright blue central stars which is being reflected off the surrounding dust.The brightest member of the central cluster is the B star HD 37903, a very young star with intense ultraviolet radiation that has carved a four light years wide cavity in the dust that we see as the reflection nebula.

Throughout the dark cloud, both in and below the Horsehead, are several small glowing reddish patches. These are the feeble lights from new stars being born in the cloud. Some of these are Herbig-Haro objects; the result of plasma jets ejected from young protostars which collide with the sourrounding gas and dust and cause the glowing emission. Inside the bright blue nebula NGC2023 are also several brightly coloured wisps of emission patches, further hints of young stellar objects and the regions' overall complexity and beauty.

The Horsehead Nebula is located around 1,500 light years distant towards the constellation of Orion. It was discovered in 1888 by Williamina Fleming on a photographic plate (#B2312) taken at Harvard College Observatory. She described the bright emission nebula later designated IC434 as having “a semicircular indentation 5 minutes in diameter 30 minutes south of Zeta [Orionis].”
She was never credited with the discovery though because Dreyer did not include her name when he compiled the Index Catalogue (IC) in 1895 and 1908.

Image details:
Date: 7th, 8th, 9th, 20th, 26th, 27th, 28th, 31st December 2013 and 2nd, 5th, 6th, 9th January 2014
Exposure: LRGB: 460:65:65:60 mins, total 10 hours 50 mins @ -25C
Telescope: 12.5" f/4 Serrurier Truss Newtonian
Camera: QSI 683wsg with Lodestar guider
Filters: Astrodon LRGB E-Series Gen 2
Taken from my observatory in Auckland, New Zealand

I'm very happy with how the scope is performing. There are considerable improvements over the 10" in most areas. Light gathering power is fantastic and resolution is markedly improved. This particular image was taken in average seeing conditions, most nights were rather humid and stars were not as crisp as I have seen them at times with the new scope back in November. But once the weather gets a bit more settled here I'd expect more steady imaging conditions, like last summer which was great here.

All comments and critique welcome.

Regards,
Rolf
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Last edited by SkyViking; 29-01-2014 at 03:28 PM.
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  #2  
Old 21-01-2014, 10:08 PM
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strongmanmike (Michael)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SkyViking View Post
Oh well, I guess one is not really an astrophotographer without an image of this classic under one's belt.

Regards,
Rolf
Congratulations You are now an astrophotographer

Nice result indeed Rolf with lots to see the 7hrs of Lum has allowed you to reveal lots of dust too (nice pink neb BTW ). You have controlled that flare from the left very well and the detail is great but perhaps the general processing/sharpening(?) is a tad obvious at full size but it looks great at size X3-Large and smaller

Onwards and upwards with the new mini Hale now

Mike
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Old 21-01-2014, 10:36 PM
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Beautiful!

Greg.
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Old 21-01-2014, 10:52 PM
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Hi Rolf,
that's one of the beast horse head's I've ever seen.
The detail is amazing.

cheers
Allan
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Old 21-01-2014, 11:30 PM
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Stunning work Rolf. Amazing to have it humming so well, so soon after finishing and installing. Congrats. You must be a very happy father
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  #6  
Old 21-01-2014, 11:34 PM
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graham.hobart (Graham stevens)
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hh

Us mere mortals tremble at the hoof beats!
Amazing.
I don't know why I bother with my stuff when guys like you and Mike and Paul et al produce such stunning stuff..... Oh yeah-it's because I like it!
Great stuff. Like an APOD.
Congratulations
From cloudy hobart (again)
Graz
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Old 21-01-2014, 11:37 PM
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1st class Image Rolf, absolutely breathtaking, ive also not seen this amount of structure revealed
Credits to your write-up too puts a great new perspective on the Horse head through & through !
Awessomeness has been wacked up another notch
Congratts with your gear and Image result.
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Old 22-01-2014, 12:01 AM
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Great stuff as always Rolf. Very nice details.
How dark are the skies at your place and do you bin rgb at all?
Have you thought of adding Ha detail as well?

Cheers
Alistair
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Old 22-01-2014, 01:44 AM
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marco (Marco Lorenzi)
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Excellent image in every aspect I always admire the level of details you are able to achieve on your images, a great result indeed!

Cheers
Marco
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Old 22-01-2014, 07:11 AM
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Fantastic result, Rolf. You have injected new life into an old friend.
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Old 22-01-2014, 08:41 AM
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Blimey. Looks like a hubble image. So much wispy detail in the dark regions.
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  #12  
Old 22-01-2014, 08:58 AM
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SkyViking (Rolf)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by strongmanmike View Post
Congratulations You are now an astrophotographer

Nice result indeed Rolf with lots to see the 7hrs of Lum has allowed you to reveal lots of dust too (nice pink neb BTW ). You have controlled that flare from the left very well and the detail is great but perhaps the general processing/sharpening(?) is a tad obvious at full size but it looks great at size X3-Large and smaller

Onwards and upwards with the new mini Hale now

Mike
Thanks Mike, good to know I've now earned that elusive badge of Astrophotographer Btw, I've heard of this 'Orion Nebula' which should be nearby, maybe now being a proper astrophotographer I need to have a go at it.

Re the pink colour yes it is indeed pink, although the emission from IC434 in particular is probably mostly red as I found the H beta emission in the blue frames to be very weak, much weaker than say the Eagle or other such nebulae. So on second thoughts I may have overdone the pink in my version, hard to know really.

I probably tend to agree with you re the processing. I actually experimented quite a bit with this image, changing my work flow and tried some new things and learned a lot. The result might be a tad soft at high resolution, I'll see how the next one turns out

Quote:
Originally Posted by gregbradley View Post
Beautiful!

Greg.
Thank you Greg

Quote:
Originally Posted by alpal View Post
Hi Rolf,
that's one of the beast horse head's I've ever seen.
The detail is amazing.

cheers
Allan
Thanks very much Allan, I'm glad you liked it!

Quote:
Originally Posted by RobF View Post
Stunning work Rolf. Amazing to have it humming so well, so soon after finishing and installing. Congrats. You must be a very happy father
Thanks Rob, yes I'm certainly happy with the scope, there are no outstanding issues really. I've also just finished installing a homemade dewheater solution with Dewbuster controller - that was the last thing on my list. I'll probably post a thread with the details as it could be useful info for others.
Oh actually there is one minor issue remaining: I do need an extra Losmandy counterweight. I've temporarily beefed it up with a 6kg lead brick in a plastic bag rolled up and taped around the shaft in order to achieve optimal balance with the new OTA, but that hardly classifies as a permanent solution!

Quote:
Originally Posted by graham.hobart View Post
Us mere mortals tremble at the hoof beats!
Amazing.
I don't know why I bother with my stuff when guys like you and Mike and Paul et al produce such stunning stuff..... Oh yeah-it's because I like it!
Great stuff. Like an APOD.
Congratulations
From cloudy hobart (again)
Graz
Thank you very much Graham, you're too kind It's all about enjoying it isn't it? That's surely my motivation too. I love the tinkering, experimenting, fine tuning and of course imaging and seeing the results. It's a great hobby.

Quote:
Originally Posted by astronobob View Post
1st class Image Rolf, absolutely breathtaking, ive also not seen this amount of structure revealed
Credits to your write-up too puts a great new perspective on the Horse head through & through !
Awessomeness has been wacked up another notch
Congratts with your gear and Image result.
Top Show
Thank you Bob, very kind words indeed. I'm glad you found it interesting, I do try to add a bit of useful info to every subject I image.

Quote:
Originally Posted by alistairsam View Post
Great stuff as always Rolf. Very nice details.
How dark are the skies at your place and do you bin rgb at all?
Have you thought of adding Ha detail as well?

Cheers
Alistair
Thanks Alistair, I have what I would probably call 'outer suburb' skies, with limiting visual magnitude around 5.5 on the best nights.
I used to bin RGB 2x2 but with the new scope I gather all data 1x1. This is because the brighter stars tend to saturate too much now with the larger aperture if binned 2x2, and it also gives me more flexibility having all data as 1x1. Another benefit is that I can create additional synthetic Luminance frames from the combined RGB data if I want to.
I don't have a Ha filter, but it's surely on my wish list. Would be good for Moonlit nights as well!

Quote:
Originally Posted by marco View Post
Excellent image in every aspect I always admire the level of details you are able to achieve on your images, a great result indeed!

Cheers
Marco
Thank you Marco, as you know I like squeezing every last bit out of the data!

Quote:
Originally Posted by RickS View Post
Fantastic result, Rolf. You have injected new life into an old friend.
Thanks Rick, I'm glad I could entertain even with such a mainstream target
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  #13  
Old 22-01-2014, 09:51 AM
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dvj (John)
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That is an A-class image.

I've never thought of the Horsehead itself casting a shadow in the foreground dust clouds. Guess I'll be getting rid of that Honders soon.
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Old 22-01-2014, 10:28 AM
Stevec35 (Steve)
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Top result Rolf!

Cheers

Steve
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Old 22-01-2014, 12:10 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dvj View Post
I've never thought of the Horsehead itself casting a shadow in the foreground dust clouds.
I've never thought of that either. you've brought out the dust details really well and the shadow really stands out. really cool especially from outer suburbs seeing. Was there any Light pollution to contend with?

Cheers
Alistair
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Old 22-01-2014, 02:30 PM
DJT (David)
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Stunning picture, Rolf. Well done
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Old 22-01-2014, 03:11 PM
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Well done Rolf, a brilliant first image with your new scope! Nice colours and you have brought out a wealth of fine detail with 7 hours of luminance data My only suggestion would be that there does appear to be some sharpening artefacts in some of the dim regions in the nebula, but a minor observation on a great image.
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  #18  
Old 22-01-2014, 03:41 PM
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iceman (Mike)
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Stunning image, Rolf. Congratulations.

This is now IOTW.
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  #19  
Old 22-01-2014, 04:12 PM
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Nice work Rolf, Like I said on FB, there is plenty to like in this image. The full size image presents pretty well overall. Like the colour and detail. All these images of the Horse Head are making me impatient to finish the data collection for my image. Been months since I started, but I have a goal. Lovely work again Rolf. Top shelf.
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Old 22-01-2014, 05:36 PM
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You've achieved great depth, the reflection neb has comes out extremely well, love the highlights on the horse. Very powerful image.

John.
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