Portrait - Horsehead and Flame Nebulae in Ha

[vincentnm]

Hi All,

Spent 4 nights on this - 14th, 16th, 20th, 22nd December 2009

I just love the "streaks" of nebulosity extending above the horsehead in the direction of M42. Apparently, these are caused by magnetic fields that emanate radially from the horsehead cloud, funnelling matter outwards in the process.

Scope: Skywatcher ED80

Camera: Modded Canon 350D with Astronomik 12nm Ha filter

Guiding: Skywatcher ST80 with DFK

Mount: Skywatcher EQ6

Exposure: 10 minutes X 46 subs

Stacked and Calibrated in Deep Sky Stacker

Stretched and Noise Reduction in Photoshop CS3

Thanks,

Vincent.

[Bernie]

Nice shot Vincent well done

Bernie

[Catanonia]

Fantastic and really make me want to get a Ha clip for my DSLR to combine with the RGB...

[MartinB]

Excellent Vince, a great demonstration of what can be achieved with a DSLR and Ha

[toilandtrouble123]

WWOOOOOOOWWWWW!!!!! everyone on this forum takes such amazings photos, I cant wait till I can do some of my own in a couple of years time

[RobH]

Very nice result Vincent, and thanks for the info on the magnetic fields too

Cheers

Rob

[steppenwolf]

This sort of image is a great ambassador for promoting the use of a DSLR for this sort of work - it shouldn't work that well yet it produces great results! Some lovely detail in the 'curtain' backdrop.

[vincentnm]

Thanks a lot guys for your encouraging comments. The plan was to get OIII and SII as well. But with the ongoing weather in the SE, looks like it is a task for next year!! That is if I use my ED80 and DSLR.

Another option is to use my Hyperstar with the SXV-H16 (which I recently acquired from Rob Hodgkinson) to gather OIII and SII really quick. But the question is, how can I colour combine images from different scopes/cameras? Is there any reliable way to convert image scales?

Thanks,

Vincent.

[themos]

Isn't OIII green-bluish? Why shouldn't the Canon be good at that wavelength? Ok, you're not using the red pixels (1/4) but you'll be using the green (2/4) and the blue (1/4) to good effect.

[vincentnm]

Isn't OIII green-bluish? Why shouldn't the Canon be good at that wavelength? Ok, you're not using the red pixels (1/4) but you'll be using the green (2/4) and the blue (1/4) to good effect.

Thanks Thermos. It's just that at F7.5 of the ED 80, it will take me ages to get OIII and SII. It took me 4 nights to collect 7 hours of Ha data, thanks to the weather. At the same rate, cant imagine spending another 8 nights for OIII and SII.

I'd rather use the Hyperstar at F2, and get the signal in a couple of nights.