Barnard 33, the Horsehead

[JSeaman]

After a few minor disasters I have a working rig again with a ZWO120mm Mini as a guide camera (thanks to all who helped with this). I had my first go at combining Ha with RGB from two Atik 314L cameras. I wasn't too impressed with the OSC version and will revert to filters again I think once I have finished my next picture which I'm half way through. 

That said, it's still the best I have managed on this target and only about 3.5 hours of Ha/RGB each

James

[MartinB]

It looks like you have some good detail in the image and the sillouette for the horse looks great but it is quite black clipped on my monitor.

[JSeaman]

Indeed it is and with good reason I'm hiding a multitude of defects on the sensor which were an unexpected surprise!

[MartinB]

25 minutes ago, JSeaman said:

Indeed it is and with good reason I'm hiding a multitude of defects on the sensor which were an unexpected surprise!

Haha😅 fair enough!

[JSeaman]

A bit disappointed actually, it was my first go with an Atik OSC and I had high hopes, it's not really any better than the QHY8L by the looks of things so I'll stick with the new narrowband world I have discovered for now!

[Star101]

Are you dithering ?

Dithering makes a world of difference. If you are just imaging and taking shot after shot with no movement of the mount, the bad parts of the chip get highlighted. If you dither ( move the scope very very slightly, between shots. When you come to stack the subs, the image will be slightly moved so the stacking software will align the images on the subs. By doing so, it will move, blend, the chip defects. Making them hardly, if at all, noticeable.  This way, improving the final image  

[JSeaman]

I wasn't in this image but have tried it. The defects are massive, must be marks on the chip. I was expecting something closer to the mono in performance but I guess that is unreasonable. I think osc has probably taken me as far as it can now