Horsehead Nebula SHO Close Up

[windjammer]

Hi

Here is a Horsehead closeup in SHO taken early to mid February.  I thought to see if the rest of the animal was lurking in the shadows, but came up with more or less nothing. There is some more detail hiding in the gas cloud but I wasn't able to bring it out convincingly - eventually got bored and gave up for now.

More and longer exposures might turn up something - it is very faint in narrowband and in closeup. A couple of renditions here showing the stretch.  The odd wispy curvey thing at top left is an artefact from a cat hair that Simpkins artfully placed on the sensor.

Simon

Details:
Photograph taken in Astronomik Ha, SII and OIII narrow band filters. Total exposure time 8.8 hrs.

Ha 2x2 and 4x4 bin - 22x600s = 3.7hrs, 7 and 13 February 2023, scope West side
SII 2x2 bin - 11x600s = 1.8 hrs, 8 February 2023, scope West side
OIII 2x2 bin - 20x600s = 3.3 hrs, 14 and 19 February 2023, scope West side

Rig:
Imaging scope: SW Startravel 150mm F5 Refractor, Baader Diamond Track, 2.5x Celestron Luminos 2inch imaging barlow, Atik 460EX mono

Guide scope: SW Evostar 90mm F10, with guiding XY stage, ZWO 120MM camera

Guiding: 2 stage PHD: high frequency guide scope (mount tracking) and low frequency OAG image train guiding (guidescope flex)

Mount: Home made German Equatorial pillow block mount, permanently rooftop mounted.  Spring loaded DEC axis gearing.

Other gadgets: ST4 based anti vibration shutter, ST4 based PEC

Processing:
PixInsight: Lights, Darks, Flats, Biases, Align Calibration, Linear fit, BXT, Channel Combination, SCNR(G). StarNet2 star removal/star layer
GradXpert: Gradient removal
Topaz DeNoise AI: Noise removal
Affinity Photo: 32 bit image processing (curves, high pass masking, selective colour)

[Smiller]

Good effort.  Getting a lot of details in a faint object is so hard.  You’re fighting several beasts at the same time:  seeing, tracking, and signal to noise.   Certainly more detail than I’ve ever captured in that target.

[MarsG76]

Awesome detail... makes me want to visit Barnard 33 for a close up also...