My first horsey, YAY!

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Last night started off very very windy but by 1:30 it was just really windy. I had the shed lid off about 8:30 but the 'scope was being buffeted too much for imaging and somebody had borrowed M74 (you know, that bright thing in Starry night Pro?) so I put the toys away. When the guests had left and I'd threatened the kids to bed I had a look but it was still too windy, trees coming down kind of windy.

After a beer my gorgeous chick took herself off to bed, me being left to lock the doors, turn lights off and stuff, so I sneaked a peek, as you do, and the wind was dropping.

As she was sleepy I decided that it was best if I left her to it for a short while and popped the shed lid.

Orion stood there leaning against a tree so I fired up the gear. M42 first using the Celestron 80mm f/5, Ha filter, SC3 camera and Atik 0.5X reducer. This looked very promising so I let it run for half an hour (see other post) and then came back out.

The fabled horsehead was in my sights. It showed up a LOT fainter than M42 and I had to go high on the gain and long on exposure. Not good if its windy.

Target aquired, subs trickling into the computer, I went inside and enjoyed another beer. I find a house full of guests and their kids a distraction which makes beer drinking unpalatable, but they had gone and my second beer was also going.

Half an hour after starting the horsey I went outside to see if anything was still there and it was. Checked the screen and it was all fuzzy! Bino's revealed clouds all over Orion. Thin clouds, but ALL OVER the thing. More clouds on their way as well!

Packed the stuff away and zapped the AVI plus a dark AVI onto the USB thing and called it a night.

This AM I checked out the AVI in massive anticipation:-

Here's frame 1, the good frame, the ONLY good frame, for your perusal.

All worth it though, as he's going nowhere and I know which tree he hides behind every evening.

Captain Chaos

[geppetto]

Made up for you CC :cheers:

It's one of those objects that you just "need" to get.

Cracking, well done matey

[GordonCopestake]

Great stuff CC! Now you know where he is we'll be expecting great things

[CELESCOPE]

Hurrayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy well done CC see now u are getting closer to that book of yours with the horse on the cover , excellent start

Rog

[gsjag]

Wow CC. What a shot!

[Caz]

..and a very nice horsey it is too! Well done CC, it was only a matter of time... 8)

Caz

[SteelRat]

Congrats matey - HAD to happen though

[lunator]

CC

Well done.

great pic of a very difficult target

Cheers

ian

[jonnyboy]

very nice

jb

[moondog]

That's an excellent shot of a difficult target.

Anyone would be pleased with that as a first attempt. Well done.

MD

[FLO]

Congrats CC

[MartinB]

That's one wide field for the SC3. All very encouraging scouting trip CC, like you say, it's going nowhere. The Horse is yours!!!

[gsjag]

They say that the only dumb question is the one you don't ask, but this question might challenge that :insects1:

Is the horsey visable to view directly or would you need to image it? If you could view directly, what size scope (approx) would you need?

Thanks

Gary

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

I'm led to believe that the Hb filter will bring it out visusally, but Astronomik's website says that you need 8" or more aperture.

http://www.astronomik.com/english/eng_hbeta.html

Captain Chaos

[AndyM]

YAY! indeed CC. Excellent picture. Hope to be able to do the same myself one day.

Andy.

[gsjag]

Thanks CC, appreciate your knowledge sharing.

[Triskellion]

Well done mate thats a breat pic. ive tried for this thing many times but all i ever get is lots of black sky? you shouldbe very happy with that. Can you give us some tips on equipment/exposures etc?

Andy

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

Equipment and exposure details? No problem.

80mm f/5 Celestron Achromatic refractor (identical to SkyWatcher ST80 I believe)

Focal reducer and Ha filter on an SC3 modified webcam.

60 second exposure at full gain and full gamma.

1 frame with levels and curves in Photoshop, Noel's actions to go from monochrome to red.

HTH

Captain Chaos

[GazOC]

Great picture and great target CC.

You're right, H Beta, decent aperture and good skies are needed visually. You can get away with the H Beta if you have really good skies though.

[Astroman]

I've posted on this before, but here we go again.

I've tried to observe this visually through scopes from 8" up to and including 28". Reflectors, refractors, filters and no filters and failed to see it so far. Alnitak is simply too bright and HH too close to see it visually. Just MHO. The Flame is easy, though, mostly because you can move Zeta off to the side.