My attempt at the Horsehead and Flame Nebulae

[pixueto]

I've been trying to image those for a while now. Finally, last Monday I decided to go for it as, according to the Met Office, that was to be the only clear night with no moon for a while. It was very cold too, which is bad for me but good for the camera. The worst part was having to go to work after 3 hours sleep. Well, this is my effort; I managed to get 1 hour 30 minutes from 6 mins subs, the CLS light pollution filter and my recently modded canon 450D. I would love to hear your comments, ideas and suggestions on how it can be improved.

Thank you.

Juan

[Quatermass]

Fantastic mate! Well worth the lack of sleep.

Sent from my GT-S5670 using Tapatalk 2

[atmenterprises]

Oh wow. Great shot!

[pixueto]

Thank you very much guys. The processing took actually longer than the actual fieldwork and I'm afraid this is going to be another short night for me!

By the way, Thank you Mark for your videos on masks; they were very useful when processing this image.

[jabberwocky]

Wow, that is amazing. Looks like a picture from an astronomy book.

[Gina]

That's excellent The only downside as I see it is the big spikes from Alnitak but that's what you get with a Newt. Great Horsehead

[Chris]

Thats fantastic pix, great reward for all your hard work:) I quite like the odd spike myself:)

[adamsp123]

Super picture well worth the effort

[pixueto]

That's excellent The only downside as I see it is the big spikes from Alnitak but that's what you get with a Newt. Great Horsehead

Thanks Gina. I think that one of the spikes is actually a satellite trail (the one that goes horizontal to the picture from the right).

[pixueto]

Thank you guys. You are very kind. I did notice that the picture gets a bit grainier when I blow it up. As this is only a total exposure time of 1 hour 32 mins, I was wondering what would the advantages be of stacking another couple of hours more? Would it improve the picture that much? I'm thinking about getting rid of the grain and showing more nebulosity under the horsey.

Thanks

Juan

[ultranova]

great image, very sharp, lots of detail and nice processing

Top stuff

Paul.

[SJJ]

Nice horsey. In answer to your question, more data will definitely bring the noise down IMHO. I'm working on this target at the moment and i'm up to 7 hrs data and still think I need more. By the way the mod on the camera looks like its paying off nicely.

[pixueto]

Thank you all for your comments. As I haven't got more data, I cheated and I run the picture through SGBNR in pixinsight to soften a bit the grain under the horsehead using a layer mask. I didn't want to touch any other nebulosity. However, I cannot decide whether there is an improvement?

[Raga]

Well done. Stunning image. As mentioned, worth the 3hrs kip.

[Gina]

I can see an improvement Not a lot maybe but it's there

[Moon monkey]

Very nice well done ....

[Cath]

Lovely image!

[zedds]

Very nice image.

[appyaardvark]

Very nice Juan, the one on the left looks softer to me...and spikes rock

[pixelsaurus]

I'd be more than happy with that.

[Seafury]

Hi , just a quick question , do you see anythiing like that if you just look visualy through your scope?

thanks Gordon

[pixueto]

Unfortunately, I can't see anything like it visually in my area (too much light pollution). All I can see is the stars; that's all for this target I'm afraid but some people, with the right aperture and in a very dark place cn see the Horsehead.

[pixueto]

Very nice Juan, the one on the left looks softer to me...and spikes rock

Thank you. The satellite trail also keeps the audience interested (the ones who aren't into astrophotography like seeing the satellite trail).

Juan

[Seafury]

Hi thanks for that info

Gordon

[stuartjones]

Fantastic image if i could get half that good it would be a start. Well done.