Horsehead or Nags Head

[bdlbug]

I started this project mid-November last year with 2hrs of Ha and 1 hr of luminance, it then went downhill from there. 

Like everyone else I have been exasperated by the amount of continuous cloud cover over the last few months. 

It has taken until end of January (30th) to manage to capture an hour each of RGB and another hour of Luminance.
There are 7 hrs of data in this image but I am frustrated with this image as its not as 'crisp' and impactful as I think I could achieve - I think it is a result of desperation making do with any sort of sub to create an image this season just because clear skies have been in such short supply.  So rather than say out of an iffy 3 hr session only 2 hrs of data might make  the cut, now it is a case of I have 3 hrs of data I'm going to use 3 hrs of data regardless. Although it looked clear on 30th, there must have been high cloud and my RGB was very soft despite the attentions of my new motorised focus setup, but given my argument above I've used all that data regardless and as a consequence dodgy data impacts the final result.

I don't think I will be able to get any more time on the horsehead this winter as by the time I can get outside on these incredibly rare clear nights Orion is already nearly past the meridian and into the distribution park light pollution bubble and my neighbour's trees to my west.

So in summary an image of horsehead and Flame nebula consisting of 2 hrs Ha(7nm) , 2hrs luminance, 1 hr each of RGB, so 7 hrs in total - all 120s subs.
Processed with APP to stack, PI to denoise the integrated subs and DBE, RegiStar to register each channel and combine RGB, then PS to stretch combine Ha (added to Red channel with Blend mode lighten) and finish.

I am frustrated at the amount of noise and also Alnitak dominates, and shows the SQUARE halo associated with the microlenses used on CMOS sensors in my case ASI1600 - this is the first time in 2 years of use I have actually had this type of artifact on any image. Also I did find it incredibly hard to get a white balance on this image so I used PI  ColorCalibration and then some tweaks in PS , whch is the first image , I then tried PI PhotometricColorCalibration, which is the second version, any opinions as to which version is the 'better' rendition are welcome.

Bryan

 

[peter shah]

superb shot... I prefer your first rendition but colour balance on the second