B33 First attempt - Ha

[x6gas]

There have been lots and lots of really excellent images of the Horsehead posted lately. Like someone else said, I've waited a long time to image this. I remember seeing a poster of it at school when I was 11 or 12 and being awe struck.

This is also my first image with my new triplet and my first using off-axis guiding.

It is a bit noisy and needs at least double the number of subs, I reckon, so I'm gonna keep plugging away and will add RGB at some point too. But for now, this is a work in progress and I have to say that I am quite chuffed with it.

TLAPO906FT f/6.7

CGEM DX, OAG, guided with IMG0H and PHD

Atik 383L+, Baader Ha 7nm

12 x 600s subs, no darks (yet), no flats (don't do them!)

Stacked and minimal processing in AstroArt

The second image has had more processing and some tweakery in PhotoPlus to try to bring out more of the nebulosity in IC 434... but brings out the noise as well!

I'd really welcome thoughts and suggestions as to how I could improve the processing in particular.

[Beyond_Vision]

Thats a great first attempt at the old Horsey the detail in the curtain behind the Horse Head looks good.

Regards

Kevin

[Zul]

Very beautiful and detailed great job

[x6gas]

Thanks Kevin, Thanks Zul.

My [long suffering] wife is also impressed with this one! Set up last night hoping to get another hour or so worth of subs but the cloud rolled in right on queue half way through the first one... Trying again tonight, but there is quite a bit of high cloud about but you never know. I need an obsy!

Any suggestions on the lengths of RGB exposures I'll need? I was thinking of 300 sec subs for each channel un-binned with this f/6.7 scope? How do you go about choosing the exposure settings for RGB? I've no idea but see that some people have different length subs for each. Is there some kind of rule of thumb?

Thanks, Ian