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Orion and Horsehead Mosaic (starless, starry, and a wanderer), Josh Smith

Orion and Horsehead Mosaic (starless, starry, and a wanderer)

Equipment

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Acquisition details

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Description

Starless: Rev A

Starry: Rev B

Wanderer: Rev C (still haven't identified this yet)

Just for Hytham: Rev D

Well, it feels good to be posting an image again! Between work, equipment woes, and weather, I've not even grabbed data in over 2 months. It's really gotten to me and I don't see much of a break on the horizon. This hobby truly is a drug, it gets you down seeing all these great pictures and not being able to get out there yourself. However, I finally got a chance to test out my replacement Baby Q with the reducer, a new used QSI 583, and the first FeatherTouch focuser made for a Baby Q as a beta unit from Starlight Instruments as well as the POSI drive. The Feathertouch and POSI drive are amazing. Perfectly square, smooth, and comes back to the same exact spot every time. The QSI was purchased on a whim last weekend when I saw a good deal pop up and I really wanted to give the 8300 a test run with this widefield. I'll probably be swapping the 690 and 583 in and out on this for now, but I had to try this target since there only appears to be one clear night this week and then back to travelling for the rest of the year for me.

I've always wanted to frame these two targets this way since the day I started and show them off in dusty monochrome. Fortunately, the speed of the Baby Q with the bigger pixels of the 8300 let me complete a reasonable 2 panel mosaic in one night. That was fun and very cool SGP swapped back and forth on them all night long so I could get similar noise in both panels and I didn't end up having to touch the setup until the end of the night when I got dewed out. Since it is only 6 hours of data, there are plenty of warts and it is probably not my best foot forward, but it definitely shows a cool dramatic view when viewing the whole thing together. More processing to come, but for now I'll just enjoy

As always C&C's much appreciated and thanks for looking!

Comments

Revisions

  • Orion and Horsehead Mosaic (starless, starry, and a wanderer), Josh Smith
    Original
  • Orion and Horsehead Mosaic (starless, starry, and a wanderer), Josh Smith
    C
  • Orion and Horsehead Mosaic (starless, starry, and a wanderer), Josh Smith
    D
  • Orion and Horsehead Mosaic (starless, starry, and a wanderer), Josh Smith
    E
  • Orion and Horsehead Mosaic (starless, starry, and a wanderer), Josh Smith
    F
  • Final
    Orion and Horsehead Mosaic (starless, starry, and a wanderer), Josh Smith
    G

Histogram

Orion and Horsehead Mosaic (starless, starry, and a wanderer), Josh Smith