They shoot horses don't they!?

[dugnsuz (Doug)]

Hello all,
I thought I would upload my recent attempts of trying to capture the Flame/Horsehead Nebulae area.
Suffice to say it's a pain in the proverbial!!
Noise Noise Noise!

All these images were taken at iso800, 6th - 9th Feb 2008.
#1 - can't remember how many 300sec exps ??10?? ??ICNR?? - must've been drunk!!!
#2 - 15x300sec ICNR off
#3 - 4x600sec ICNR on

Scope: ED80
Camera: Canon 40D
Autoguided with PHD

Stacked in ImagesPlus 2.80
Processed in Photoshop CS

Cheers
Doug

[Terry B]

For the noise reduction off image, did you use darks afterwards?

[dugnsuz (Doug)]

Yes Terry initially!!
But I used mismatched darks taken on another night - very unprofessional!!
Resulting image was 'orrible - tiny dark holes all over the place.
As I had 15 images I decided to re-stack and apply noise reduction in PS which is what i did on that image.
Doug

[Garyh]

What ever you did for the first one really worked.. must have been that homebrew stuff . Nice colors and fairly smooth. Shadows are a bit on the green side but other than that its very nice..
cheers Gary

[h0ughy (David)]

LOL fabulous thumbnails. I have to agree the noise is horrendous - - one may need a cooled DSLR - no noise

I do repsect you though - you managed to capture photons, which seems to be very hard to get nowdays

[dugnsuz (Doug)]

Thanks all...
I'm looking at these pics on my work computer and have realised my home comp must need reset. The obvious horizontal banding on the middle image is obvious here but not at home. I'll have to go through the Adobe Gamma program I think. I blame Vista - really temperamental OS!!!
Cheers
Doug

[dugnsuz (Doug)]

h0ughy - "LOL fabulous thumbnails"

Yeah David,
150x95 pixels is the way to go I reckon

Doug

[EzyStyles (Eric)]

very nice doug. can see a huge difference between icnr and none.

[skeltz (Rob)]

Hi doug love the first one,yes the necter of the gods does cause a few hiccups sometimes...including wild turkey...but its all GOOD!!

[dugnsuz (Doug)]

Originally Posted by rpsastronomy

Hi doug love the first one,yes the necter of the gods does cause a few hiccups sometimes...including wild turkey...but its all GOOD!!

Cheers mate!
Doug

[Tamtarn]

The first image is definitely the best of the the three Doug.

A real good result for your first try at Horsehead.