Horsehead and Flame Nebula

A popular, yet challenging image to capture and process.

 

 

 

Equipment:

Refractor, 71 mm aperture, 350 mm focal length

QSI683 CCD (Kodak KAF8300 sensor)

QSI integrated Filter Wheel (1.25” Baader filters)

QSI integrated off-axis guider with Lodestar CCD

Paramount MX, Berlebach tripod

Software: (Windows 7)

Sequence Generator Pro, ASCOM drivers

PHD2 autoguider software

PixInsight (Mac OSX)

Exposure: (LRGBHα)

L bin 1; 35 × 300 seconds, 15 × 30 seconds

RGB bin 2; 130 × 300 seconds each

Hα bin 1; 15 × 1200 seconds

The first edition has a facer image of this nebula pair, a true first-light experience of this famous part of the Orion nebula complex. At the time of image capture I was using a portable setup and the acquisition ...

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