A start on the Witch Head Nebula.

[ollypenrice]

I've always been a bit intimidated by this object since it is very faint and also very close to Rigel, so easily clobbered by reflections.

Anyway I started out on it last night and found it very do-able (famous last words?) I collected 6 hours of luminance at F3.9 in the Baby Q. There were big reflections and spikes coming from Rigel just out of view but I thought I could live with them and it processed out to give a strong signal. Then I remembered 22x10 mins of data we shot with Tom's 11 meg in my Tak at native FL last year. I still had them but no flats or darks. Using Sigma stacking the result was very low in noise and I used Pixinsight's DBE to flattten it. Without the reducer, no spikes or reflections! Aha, I combined them in weightings which varied according to which bit of which image was best and the result is a really feisty L layer. I guess it should be at 9.5 hours and fast f ratios...

So onwards with the colour tonight, then the absolutely vital Ha layer. It's a reflection nebula? Yes, but buried in the Ha of Barnard's Loop... It's the colour that could be the issue since the Ha tends to look after itself.

It's a good challenge if you fancy something tricky.

Olly

[Tim]

Tricky isnt the word Olly! At least from the UK. Its the hardest thing I've ever attempted image wise

[ollypenrice]

Tricky isnt the word Olly! At least from the UK. Its the hardest thing I've ever attempted image wise

Ah, I'm glad I'm not alone, then!

Olly