ollypenrice

That's because we started with a Samyang lens mounting kit made by Wega, a firm of shameless sellers of pure junk. This 150 euro 'product' immediately started falling to bits, piece by piece, so I had to use hardware I had in stock to keep the project going. I don't think we'll be changing it because it works fine. In particular, the focus belt tension can be very finely adjusted by moving the lens in the Altair Astro guide scope rings - which are very good. I wondered about the same thing. Given that the structures in brown, on the left, and blue, on the right, seem so similar (apart from the left being brown and the right blue) I'm inclined to think they must be the same stuff but illuminated differently. The brown dust to the right of the Horsehead also turns blue as you follow it upwards, confirming that it is probably the same stuff. So I think the blue is simply scattered reflection of the kind we see around the Pleiades. There are bright stars in the vicinity. Their true distance from the blue reflection may be disguised by differences in distance from us. We can't trust the visual 'side to side' distance because the near-far distance may be very deceptive. I certainly don't think it's OIII. Olly

Yes. The classic Witch Head is actually the same shape repeated one above the other and there's a very similar shape just above them, fully detached. I think! Olly

New Samyang image here: Olly

By the way, there are effectively three Witch Head nebulae, are there not? This fits in with my 'replicating shapes' obsession! Olly

Wide open, Steve. Corner stars are not perfect but once they are heavily reduced in processing, which they always will be on wide field images, it doesn't much matter. On a 12 panel downsized to 5,500 pixels wide, like this, there really isn't any problem. It was never our intention to produce a giant, zoomable image. Olly

This is, pure and simple, RGB from our very dark site. It's from a one shot colour camera with no other filters. It looks unfamiliar because, usually, we see this kind of object in HaRGB or HaLRGB. Much of the brown dust in this image also contains ionized hydrogen so it will show up in Ha and come out as bold red in HaRGB. I like using fast optics with OSC because you get more dust and less gas, if you like, and in their natural proportion. That means more brown and less red. Orion is this way up for me, in the northern hemisphere! Australian mileage may vary... Olly

It's a very different animal. The one with which I helped Tom O'Donoghue was enormous and 'zoomable,' so you could close in and have M42 filling the screen. However, it was not the full Orion field, lacking the top of the Meissa nebula and the Witch Head. The new one (just) fits it all in, including the stars making the hunter's bow. I've just printed the new one at A3 without difficulty but its natural size isn't much bigger than that. The other difference is that this is just natural colour with no added Ha. As a result, you get a more honest (and I think more interesting) proportion of dust to gas. This is considerably deeper on the dust, and has benefitted from the new processing software to make the most of that. I'm particuarly enjoying not using Ha at the moment because of this increase in the proportion of dust. The big one took 400 hours, this one probably 35 or so. Olly

Lucky chap! This project has made me old!!! lly

PS the tiny hero of this effort: Olly

Imaged with Paul Kummer and Peter Woods. Phew! A heroic capture campaign run by Paul as Orion began to slip too low for comfort. We just made it by the skin of our teeth. 12 panel mosaic, Samyang 135, the best panels having 3 hours, the worst a lot less! TS2600 OSC camera and Avalon M Uno, jointly owned and based in our robotic shed. The Witch Head, M42, the Flame and M78 have been gently enhanced by telescopic data but the image really is mostly Samyang. Pre-processed in APP, then Pixinsight and, mostly, Photoshop. Peter, Paul and Penrice.

Rodd's recent high res rendition of this great galaxy reminded me that my widefield has never had the 'X-suite' treatment, so here it is. I was absolutely convinced I also had it at twice this resolution but, if I do, I can't find it! Olly

Splendid! I've still never seen it. Olly

I keep going in these circumstances. My benchmark question is, 'What do I want to do with these captures?' You already have good galaxy core detail, good colour and good stars. All you really need is more signal to separate the faint arms from the background. There is no fine detail in this so do you really need good seeing? Olly

It's a lovely object and much of the image is right on the money. I can only agree, though, that deep luminance would take it to the next level, letting the faint, extended arms rise more clearly out of the background. Olly

These days, with small pixel cameras, there is no need for more than a metre of focal length unless you have a site with phenomenally stable seeing. I've had great results from a TEC 140 refractor but it isn't a fast option for going deep. A scope I'd certainly look at would be the Skywatcher Mn190. You'd want to upgrade the focuser but it produces fine results when sorted. Orion Optics UK were recommended earlier in the thread. I would strongly advise you to Google 'Orion Optics UK customer service' before considering them - or PM me if you wish. Olly

The learning curve in any editing suite ends in the perfect image. That means that the learning curve in any editing suite rises to the infinitely steep, ie vertical, and if anybody does ever reach the top, how will we know? I would advise you to start with a given software, learn to exploit it, get the most you can out of it, and then reflect upon what more you would like. Ask on the forum which package will offer you that extra feature. Try it. Move on. The world of image processing is enormous, which is good because it will keep you entertained for a lifetime. I can tell you what I use: APP for pre-processing (done, these days, by my collaborator Paul Kummer) then Pixinsight for three operations, then Photoshop for the hundreds of operations which remain. That's just me. The alternatives are not necessarily better or worse, just different. One thing, though: if anyone tells you Photoshop is done for, that is because they don't understand it. Olly

Being promiscuous, my data are stacked in APP then Pixinsight for DBE, SCNR and crtitically, Blur Xterminator, after which it is Photoshop all the way. Do not under-estimate Photoshop. If you like to see what you are doing, as you are doing it, Phtoshop it is. Olly

We could certainly try it. I'm not sure how we'd be able to present, simultaneously, the deep Ha and the dust, since they occupy more or less the same space but worth a try. Olly

I know! I'm now participating in two rigs using this chip. lly

I did an HaLRGB of this a few years ago using Tak 106/mono CCD. This new version is mostly RASA 8/OSC CMOS done with Paul Kummer. The data were shot before we'd sorted the cable routing so the stars were slightly elongated. When I replaced the stars after StarXterminator I opted for the earlier Tak ones to cure this problem. I also added the Tak Ha but, in fact, it hardly shows other than in the small, isolated nebula lower left. I'm converted to avoiding extra Ha where possible because the proportion of reflection dust to emission gas is much higher, making for a more subtle image. Also, the remarkable colour range in the emission, going from strong magenta to light orange, was entirely absent in the HaLRGB. In that one all the emission is the same colour. I found this much more interesting to work on than the old one. Olly

Deserved without a shodow of a doubt. Confident and subtle imaging. Olly

The artificial star is to be found in optical workshops everywhere. The simplest is the illuminated ballbearing. Only the part of the ball closest to the lens reflects light into it, so you get a near point-source. I used it successfully to re-align the front element of a TV Genesis but, in your case, I'd start by testing the orothogonality of the focuser. Olly

I'd do that first. The cigar does have distinctive Ha projections but I'd go deep in OSC first. Olly

The trick is to be impossible to live with on account of mount backlash problems. Done properly, this will see you given a Mesu next Christmas. It worked for me - twice. lly

The thing about M81/82 is that, if you go reasonably deep, you have lots of nice activity between the galaxies as well, notably Arp's Loop and the Holmberg IV dwarf galaxy. There's also IFN in the field. Plenty of entertainment! Olly