Flame and Horsehead from Kelling Heath

[madjohn]

Hi folks, it was a mixed bag of clear spells and cloud and haze at Kelling, however I managed to get some imaging done between the gaps.

This is one of my favourite parts of the sky (although its up at around 4pm at the moment!) the mighty constellation of Orion.

This is the flame nebula with the Horsehead getting in on the act.

18 X 330 sec subs at 1600 ISO.

Orion ED 80 and my modded 450D on my NEQ6 mount, guided using PHD.

There's an awful lot of dust in this part of the sky and I haven't found a way to bring it out properly yet, (any advice anyone?) however I'm very pleased how it came out considering the conditions.

Hope you like it.

John

[RobH]

Very nice John.

You must have taken advantage of the clear spells in the early hours after the haze had lifted

A way to bring out certain colour bands is to play with the 'selective colour' command in photoshop.

This can be found in 'IMAGE....ADJUSTMENTS....SELECTIVE COLOUR'

It allows you to very precisely control the balance of each colour, and can be used to highlight certain features. The best advice I can give is just to play around with this and get a feel for it.

Cheers

Rob

[Pingster]

Wow beautiful. I tried to visually observe this from kelling in my 8in. Not a chance. Did not see anything at all.

[theodoros1978]

amazing shot, horsehead is one of my best, orion is getting up day by day

[JimStan]

Wow beautiful. I tried to visually observe this from kelling in my 8in. Not a chance. Did not see anything at all.

The only view I have ever had of the Horsehead was through a fellow club member's 15 inch Dobsonian on a farm a good ways out from Hagerstown. I could definately see it, although obviously there was no color to be seen.

I have seen the flaming tree in an 8 inch once, but I should say that I really only sensed its presence, because I knew it was there. If I had been looking at something that dim in some other part of the sky, I probably would have passed right by it !

Nice photo work, though. Makes me appreciate how much more we can capture with a camera, than we can see with our eyes using the same optics!

Jim S.