A pony in the sky (Chri-Fi)

A pony in the sky

Why are you doing this?
I am often asked when it comes to my hobby. Answering the question is usually not that easy. I usually don't have a real reason at hand besides my fascination for the heavens above.
But I can still remember my personal “initial spark”.
Damaged by too much spaceship Enterprise, I got my hands on a glossy picture of the Horsehead Nebula when I was a child. That's when it happened and I wanted to see it for myself. Find out what's going on up there. So a telescope was needed.
Santa Claus was so nice (after some discussion) and brought a little Newton. It couldn't show me this nebula but it was enough anyway.

Many years later, I still couldn't let go of the topic. So I treated myself with a StarTracker and started taking the first pictures. That was about 4 years ago. After a year I had converted an old Canon FD fixed focal length into a telescope and targeted precisely this one nebula. Even with the first frame on the camera screen, the horse's head was very faint but I was as happy as a little boy. Since then every hope has been completely lost…. And what can I say, I've now reached a point that I never thought I'd reach.

What is your story ? What was your "initial spark"? Why are we doing this to ourselves? 😜

Greetings to you all from Germany.

Here are a few details about the picture:
2h Integration time, each with 60s
+ Darks and Flats

Equipment:

Celestron RASA 8 (400mm f2)
Altair Astro Hypercam 183C ProTec
Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro
ZWO ASI 120mm Mini with "No Name" 50mm Guide Scope
ZWO EAF
#no filter
Recorded with NINA

Edited with APP and Photoshop

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Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
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Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	n/a
Started	n/a
Astrometry.net job	n/a
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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A pony in the sky

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