The Flame Nebula in Ha

[steppenwolf]

Well that was a pleasant surprise, a beautiful crescent Moon, a high ISS pass and a fairly clear night for the first time in ages!

Sadly too tired to make a whole night of it but I did have to take some advantage of it so here's 1 hour of Ha on the Flame Nebula, no calibration frames (tut, tut) but 6 x 600 sec. subframes stacked in MaximDL with levels adjustment in PS.

[ncjunk]

Theres some great detail and very sharp. There looks to be a halo around the brightest star is this due to the optics?

[steppenwolf]

Unfortunately, the halos are a side effect of the filter - flaming nuisance if you'll excuse the pun ....

[ncjunk]

...i like the pun! I only asked as i have an HA filter on its way so its nice to know i may suffer the same problems (i dont know if "nice to know" is the best way of putting that!)

[steppenwolf]

Don't worry too much about the halos, I don't always get these by any means. Remember that the really bright star to the bottom right of the 'flame' is Alnitak, one the Orion 'belt stars' and the very star that causes so much grief with diffraction spikes when imaging the Horsehead Nebula so this is no 'ordinary' star!

To put this into perspective, although there are halos in the following image, they are much less intrusive yet they were taken with the same set-up and exactly the same exposure lengths as the above image.

[Whippy]

Very nice mate, for only an hour that's impressive .

Tony..

[barkis]

Looks very rich and sharp Steve.

Another cracker in the making .

Ron.

[ashworthacca]

Great as usual....inspiring and I can't wait to see the finished work.

[moocher]

Not too shabby for an hour! Would you believe I was imaging last night? Ubguided with the gpdx but I was getting 150 secs without any trouble. Had a go at the HH myself but left it a bit late, too many trees to my west

Alan

[Ant]

Last night was a cracking night wasn't it? The moon as you say was a lovely sight, and the ISS going over a bonus as well.

The Flame is very nice mate. Alnitak does tend to get in the way a little doesn't it?

Cheers

Ant

[ncjunk]

Thanks for the explanation Steve.

[steppenwolf]

Would you believe I was imaging last night? Ubguided with the gpdx but I was getting 150 secs without any trouble.

That's a very useful exposure length to achieve unguided. On my EQ6 unguided, I can get possibly a maximum of 180 seconds unguided but have to discard one in three subs. as a minimum - hence I autoguide! However, you can collect a lot of data in 150 seconds.

[RobH]

Nice image of a target that's often overlooked in it's own right Steve

Cheers

Rob

[Taff]

Hi Steve' nice to see your captures once again.That's a clear capture of the flame nebula nice and clear with you.Mark