The Blue Horsehead Nebula

[emyliano2000]

Last weekend I went on a trip to a UK bortle 2 location and because I wanted the Blue Horsehead Nebula so much I decided to give it a try.

Eq3 Pro, Canon 700D astro modified Samyang 135mm f2 @ f2.8, IDAS LPS-D1 clip in filter, QHY5 guide camera, 9x50 finder-guider, QhyCCD polemaster.

Location: Woodland Caravan Park, Pontarfynach, Wales, Bortle 2 Date: 05.05.2019

The image is the result of 21x180sec ISO800 exposures stacked and calibrated in DSS and processed with Photoshop CC 2019 and Lightroom CC.

Emil

[Allinthehead]

Very nicely done. A tough one from your location.

[geordie85]

A very nice image. 

I'm now looking Into a trip there myself 

[emyliano2000]

20 minutes ago, geordie85 said:

A very nice image. 

I'm now looking Into a trip there myself 

Be aware that the surrounding hills are quite high and there are quite a few annoying lights on site.

Luckily my targets were not in that direction.

[steppenwolf]

Very nice indeed, not seen this one before and it's a beauty!

[tooth_dr]

You really are working that 700d to the max.  That's awesome.

[emyliano2000]

Just now, tooth_dr said:

You really are working that 700d to the max.  That's awesome.

That's why I had it modified. ?

[Saganite]

Very nice image Emyliano, never seen this before, thank you...

[geordie85]

1 hour ago, emyliano2000 said:

Be aware that the surrounding hills are quite high and there are quite a few annoying lights on site.

Luckily my targets were not in that direction.

That's a great shame that bortle 2 skies are ruined by those lights. Are they on all night? Did you notice any areas that weren't lit up? 

[newbie alert]

Great job Emil

[emyliano2000]

3 minutes ago, geordie85 said:

That's a great shame that bortle 2 skies are ruined by those lights. Are they on all night? Did you notice any areas that weren't lit up? 

Unfortunately they were on all night. Most of the area is surrounded by tall trees and that is the best location on that site. They were telling me there's another site close by with 360° views and no obstructions but I don't know if that one has similar lights running all night.

[DaveS]

4 hours ago, emyliano2000 said:

Be aware that the surrounding hills are quite high and there are quite a few annoying lights on site.

Luckily my targets were not in that direction.

Argh, that should be illegal, with a long stay in one of Her Majesty's hotels as a reward.

[emyliano2000]

11 minutes ago, DaveS said:

Argh, that should be illegal, with a long stay in one of Her Majesty's hotels as a reward.

Indeed it should. I would've moved somewhere else but knowing it was gonna be a very cold night with temperatures dropping to -4°C during the night, I had to stay there because I had power to warm up my tent. I stayed outside most of the night and close to the morning I was absolutely covered in frost but it was well worth it. I shot other targets too and I was shocked by the amount of data I was getting in the single subs. For example this is a screenshot of a single 3min sub of the North America nebula, tweaked in Camera raw to equalise the channels.

[geordie85]

9 minutes ago, emyliano2000 said:

Indeed it should. I would've moved somewhere else but knowing it was gonna be a very cold night with temperatures dropping to -4°C during the night, I had to stay there because I had power to warm up my tent. I stayed outside most of the night and close to the morning I was absolutely covered in frost but it was well worth it. I shot other targets too and I was shocked by the amount of data I was getting in the single subs. For example this is a screenshot of a single 3min sub of the North America nebula, tweaked in Camera raw to equalise the channels.

So even with all those lights, you were still getting good data by the looks of it. 

Would you recommend a stay there for imagi? It's got to be an improvement on my bortle 6 skies 

[emyliano2000]

1 minute ago, geordie85 said:

So even with all those lights, you were still getting good data by the looks of it. 

Would you recommend a stay there for imagi? It's got to be an improvement on my bortle 6 skies 

I'm in a bortle 6 zone too. It is a 100% improvement but there's gotta be places with no lights in that area. Plenty of bortle 2 skies around there.

[emyliano2000]

30 minutes ago, geordie85 said:

So even with all those lights, you were still getting good data by the looks of it. 

Would you recommend a stay there for imagi? It's got to be an improvement on my bortle 6 skies 

I guess that if you shoot away from those light it's not such a big deal. The 1st night was partially cloudy and you actually couldn't see the clouds, it was pitch black like the stars disappeared from the sky. Where the Milky way was coming up and there were small gaps in the clouds you could actually see the clouds being brightened by the stars above and absolutely black below. I took a shot of my setups working to gather the photons and you could see the milky way rising above the hills. It's only a 20sec exposure ISO1600 with my 450D and samyang 16mm f2 @ f2.8

[Star101]

Impressive images. Those dark skies do look very attractive too.

Thanks for the info and sharing your images.