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First Horse Head

mikeobrien

By mikeobrien
in Imaging - Deep Sky

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mikeobrien

mikeobrien

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The thing that made it special is that when I was 16 I was told by one of the well respected astronomers I knew that it would never be possible to capture it from Salford. I actually shot it from Wigan which has skies that are no better. So Bob this one was shot just for you to say thanks for the help and encouragement you gave me.

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malc-c

malc-c

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Mike, that's a fantastic image - well done

I notice that there is an additional diffraction spike to the right of the vertical spike in the image.  I had a similar problem with my SW200P, as documented in this thread http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/159748-200p-colimation-or-poor-optics/ 

To save you wading through 22 pages, the problem was down to an uncoated portion on the secondary mirror's minor axis.  Replacing this with a slightly larger secondary resolve the problem complety

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SnakeyJ

SnakeyJ

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Excellent capture and process on this Mike - never ceases to amaze me what can be resolved under less than perfect UK skies, even with moderate LP to contend with on top!    Not sure how long ago Bob gave you the advice, but I suspect it reflected the more limited equipment available to amateurs at the time - just shows what a sensitive modern ccd and 12" newt can achieve in relatively short integration.    Look forward to having a go at this iconic target myself if the weather allows, though will need 3 x the exposure with my 8" newt and dslr!

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Ewan

Ewan

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Very nice Mike, i take it that was one 60 minute shot ? very nice & great guiding.

Was this just the Ha filter ? or Ha & R ?

Really smooth shot Mike with plenty of detail, im no critique but maybe a few shorter subs as Alnitak gets a little too bright.

I know what you mean about 'always wanting to photograph' this one, same thing here, there is just so much about at the moment were a bit spoilt for choice apart from the cloudless nights allowing it that is.

Well done.

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Ewan

Ewan

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If I remember correctly it was made up of 10min sub's using a uhc filter. Yes next try will have shorter sub's to try and control alnitak.

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Mike what gear did you use for this & is that image cropped ?

Exp & filters ?

I have only managed to get 1.5 hours Ha & 1 hour S2 as the weather is usual for this time of year, looking forward to something like you have up there.

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mikeobrien

mikeobrien

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Hi Ewan,

The scope is a 305mm Skywatcher Explorer f4.92 focal length 1500mm Newtonian. The image was taken at prime focus using a Qhy8l CCD camera cooled to -20°c below ambient. The image is in cropped and I used a coma corrector and a UHC filter. The sub's were 10mins and I stacked 8 of them. Orion was quite low at the time and I was pleasantly surprised at how well it came out. Are you still in Wigan or nearby as it makes a change to chat to people who don't glaze over when talking astro or imaging! What gear are you using?

post-29935-1385068767_thumb.jpg

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