An Out-of-Season Horsehead

[The Lazy Astronomer]

Well past the usual time for one of these images to make an appearance! It takes me a long time to get around to actually doing anything with my data...

This is probably the region that got me into wanting to try astrophotography a few years ago, after a former work colleague showed me an image of this very object. I really couldn't believe that so much detail could be captured from a regular suburban back garden, and I guess that's what got me hooked on the idea of giving it a go for myself.

Captured in Jan/Feb this year, just shy of 16 hours in HaLRGB (split as below) with a 294MM and Astronomik filters. Stacked in Siril and processed entirely in PI.

Ha - 7h
L - 4h 51m
R - 1h 17m
G - 1h 24m
B - 1h 24m

Ideally I'd have liked more LRGB, but various things conspired to prevent that from happening. The L data was ok, but the Ha was much cleaner, so the luminance channel is composed mostly of Ha, with L blended in larger amounts around features largely absent in the Ha capture, such as NGC2023. I wanted to retain the Ha stars, as they were obviously much tighter than the broadband ones - hopefully I haven't fudged their colours too much in my attempts to do this. Ha was also blended into the red channel using the PM formula described by Rogelio Bernal Andreo in his book Mastering Pixinsight.

As usual, feedback and critique welcomed!

Thanks

 

[alan potts]

Out of season maybe but as good as any I have seen, nicely done Sir.

Alan

[bomberbaz]

Nice and sharp without overdone colour (something a few people seem to do) plus I don't know what you have done with the stars but spot on, I like it a very lot. 

[The Lazy Astronomer]

Thanks very much gents 😊

[simmo39]

V sharp, like that a lot!