Mike's Horsehead

[Fay]

Looking forward to the above, Mike, I think it will be amazing!

[Mike]

Just processing it. I will upload it once i've finished.

[Mike]

OK this is about as good as I can get it :-



I noticed afterwards that the stars in the raw FITS were slightly elongated so there was obviously a bit of drift despite what appeared to be good guiding. I am wondering if there is a bit of mechanical slop in the mount as it is brand new. I tried deconvolving the drift out but ended up with rings around stars so gave up.

[MarkS]

That's an amazing image Mike!  I love the all the detail in the clouds. 

What was/were the exposure time(s)?

[Mike]

Mark it was a total of 90 minutes in 10 minute subs.

[Fay]

I knew it would be worth waiting for Mike.
Your first one for such a long time

[JohnP]

Great image Mike - Like you say shame about the star trails - maybe Dec Drift due to inaccurate Polar Alignment...? Also looks like the whites are saturated in flame area & some of the stars... maybe needs careful reprocessing... I think horsehead is one of those objects that is really hard to process because of the large dynamic range. Is there any chance you could email a raw file - I'd be real interested in taking a look at one.

Thks & great job - good to see you back imaging again & hopefully it'll be with your own mount soon...

John.

[Mike]

Thanks John. I've had another go at processing it by exporting it into Photoshop and playing around with the shadow/midtones/highlights to stop the flame are abeing burnt out and bringing out more detail in that area. See what you think :-

[JohnP]

That looks loads better - tons of detail visible in the flame & the stars aren't as saturated.. i much prefer this version.

John

[Fay]

Ten times better Mike!

[Mac]

wow.

what else can you say, thats fantastic

[Rocket Pooch]

I tweaked it a bit..

[Tony G]

Stunning image Mike,
everyone is tweaking and processing this in different ways, I would be pretty damned pleased with the original.

Tony G

[mickw]

I like the detail shown in the Horsehead in Mike Mk1 and Chris' tweak but the detail in Flame in Mike Mk2 is much better.
So, question time, can you "dodge" in Photoshop ?
Mick

[Fay]

I think Mike mk2 is best as well