Witches Head nebula - very elusive!

[Tim]

This is probably the most difficult target I have photographed so far. Not only is it very low down, but being a reflection nebula you really need dark skies and no light pollution to pick it up. This series was taken at Kelling Heath SP this autumn.

I didn't realise how big the thing is either, so framing was very tricky, I went with what I thought was best going from pictures on the www, but could have got that better. Rigel is incredibly bright, and makes its presence felt in the top right of the picture.

At any rate, i'm glad to have ANYTHING on this target, because it really is tricky. There's loads of faint fuzzies in the image too, easier to see in the full size version, which you can download (3.3mb) here.

Borg 77EDII with 0.85 reducer and QHY8. Just 5 x 10 mins, it was all I could get on it.

Thanks for looking.

Tim

[Telrad]

Tim, Fantastic! Lots of good signal, brilliant contrast and superb tight colourful stars. Just excellent!

[foundaplanet]

Great piece of sky. I always like to see images with faint fuzzies they add that immense feeling. This is one of those that leave you with a feeling of staring into the abyss. Grand stuff..

[peter shah]

A very dificult target especially from this part of the word.....I spent a while grabbing this one so i have quite a soft spot for it. Did you encounter any of those annoying satellites? an absolute pain this target is hard enough without.

A wonderful rendition Tim

[ollypenrice]

Well done. This is a real challenge! One thing you might not think of is an Ha layer but since this is embedded in Barnard's Loop, albeit the collapsed western side, there is Ha signal to be had.

OPllhy

[Tim]

That's an interesting proposition Olly, only I used the OSC camera and to have put a ha filter in there would have been a real pain with spacing and everything, with the reducer and OAG

I'll go back through the red channel and see if any was picked up, didnt notice any though.