Horsehead and flame nebulae - 40minute 2x2 mosaic

[ONIKKINEN]

10x60s in a 2x2 mosaic of the Horsehead and Flame nebulae with an 8'' newtonian, Rising Cam IMX571 OSC camera and an Antlia Triband RGB ultra filter.

This target is not really shootable from my latitude of 60N, at least not if one would go for high resolution data. So i binned it x6 to make up for the short integration and the terrible stars you get with 20 degrees of elevation. Seeing was also bad not just towards the horizon but everywhere else, so this was more of a necessity than a pure choice i wanted to make.

Processing in PI, Siril and Photoshop. The colour palette is whatever PixInsights SPCC tool made of it when i input the filter information of the Triband RGB (removed a little bit of green afterwards). Applied BlurXT but it has very little effect because the resolution is already quite crunched to 4.5'' per pixel. Did sharpen stars a little bit, and maybe the edge of the horse a bit. Also generous application of NoiseXT to cull the noise a bit. No starless processing for this, didnt see the point as BlurXT fixed stars well and i find there is no need for specific starless processing afterwards.

Edited December 25, 2022 by ONIKKINEN
Clicked enter by accident when posting...

[geeklee]

Great job @ONIKKINEN  Good choices in processing 👍  I always bemoan Orion's altitude with me at 57N but 60N is even more challenging.

[Mr Spock]

Looks really good 👍

[ONIKKINEN]

13 minutes ago, geeklee said:

Great job @ONIKKINEN  Good choices in processing 👍  I always bemoan Orion's altitude with me at 57N but 60N is even more challenging.

Im having fun experimenting with mosaicing and extreme binning to circumvent the low altitude sharpness issues. At 100% zoom of the original capture resolution it appears as an aberration bingo with a hit on every line, but reduce size to 1/6th and they all go away like magic. An Orion 3x3 mosaic is in the works too but that one was cut short due to arrival of clouds, so couldn't finish even a single run of the sequence but it should also turn out pretty good even if it is a few degrees closer to the horizon.

[geeklee]

8 minutes ago, ONIKKINEN said:

At 100% zoom of the original capture resolution it appears as an aberration bingo with a hit on every line

Love this description 😅  I like your experiments and have enjoyed the same when trying this type of thing myself.

9 minutes ago, ONIKKINEN said:

An Orion 3x3 mosaic is in the works too but that one was cut short due to arrival of clouds, so couldn't finish even a single run of the sequence but it should also turn out pretty good even if it is a few degrees closer to the horizon.

Awesome, look forward to seeing this one over the coming weeks/months.

[Ouroboros]

Lovely. Nicely processed image. Not bad for something “not really shootable” as you put it.  I have this target on my list for this winter, but just not had the opportunity weather-wise. 

[ONIKKINEN]

16 minutes ago, Ouroboros said:

Lovely. Nicely processed image. Not bad for something “not really shootable” as you put it.  I have this target on my list for this winter, but just not had the opportunity weather-wise. 

I have to travel a bit to find a location with enough decent visibility to the south so these opportunities are few and far between regardless of weather. Binning is working overtime to hide the starshapes here, i doubt i could get a nice image at a bin level of any less than 6x. Maybe 5x if seeing was really good but rarely is.