One of my favorite targets out there, so naturally it was the first target I attempted with my newly acquired (then) 585mc camera.

There were many attempts before this one, usually using sharpcap while doing live stacking, but this time it was going to be different, this time I have a dedicated camera, this time im using a proper dual narrow band filter, and so, for 6 nights in a row, I imaged and imaged, as my friend @Ursamo Astrophotography - Mohamed Usama Ismail suggested. 

This time .... was just crap!!!

DSS didn't want to stack the images, because there were too few stars, I think i tired every setting in DSS to while trying to stack this image. Frustrated, I gave up, until APP was brought to my attention by my friend @Ahmed Waddah. With sparkles in my eyes, I went home got APP and stacked the set of images, going through iterations and iterations of stacking.

This time it will be good?

Well better, I had a big red cloud with a dark blob coming out if it. My processing was horrible.

It was around that time oddly enough @Uwe Deutermann  had liked one of my other images, so I checked his gallery out. While being dazzled with the amazing images right and left, I came across the most beautiful image of the Horsehead Nebula  I had  ever seen, don't get me wrong there are a lot of great images but this one was just beautiful. I decided to text Uwe about it, and he has been a great friend and mentor ever since.

"All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put humpty together again". uhm Horsehead!

My processing was still horrible, and it wasn't good enough, it took about 6 months of me working on my processing, on my own images and on collaborations, redoing and redoing my work over and over again. Getting tips from Uwe, watching tons of videos , reading a ton more of discussions, and engaging in a lot of duissions with other members on astrobin, I can finally present an image that is worthy of the horsehead . @estabrook@Alaa El Bedewi@Ahmed Waddah thank you for your support you guys rock!

But ...What about the stars?  my final image was good considering the conditions it was taken under, but the stars were horrible, and If I have learned anything from Uwe, it is "you have to take care of your stars".

So left this one in the archive for a bit, until about 2 weeks ago, when i was discussing something with @F. Londe , and I showed him the image, and he loved it, i told him it's a work in progress, and he was ... "Ok Finish it", and kept on pushing me to finalize it. Thanks Fernando

So armed with my accumulated knowledge I gave it all I got and it was way better than my last image, I tried to fix the stars as best as I could, but they still were not that great, but the image was. 

So hiding behind a wall, I sent it to Uwe, he liked it, but ofc commented on the stars. Now feeling sad, like a student who gave the wrong answer I continued to read his comment, there Uwe made a suggestion to lend me his stars.  I eagerly agreed.

"Lend me his stars"

Uwe had given me a great idea, so I looked for my stars, and there they were, all those previous failed attempts and live stacks. 

Quickly I blinked through hundreds of 1-30s shots, and picked out the best 205 images. Now life won't be that simple ofc, they were all in different orientations so i grouped and stacked and did a whole lot of pixel math and dynamic alignments until finally i had an OK set of stars. Integrated those and used StarSpikes Pro to hide the issues (don't tell Uwe).

The moment of truth, I sent the image to Uwe.

A couple of hours of nail biting passed .... I got the notification.

Alas my stars were Uwe approved, YAY I received my first UCOS certification (Uwe Certified Okish Stars). All kidding aside, really thank you Uwe for being a great mentor and friend.

So I present to you, the final Horsehead image that took me about 6 month and countless hours to process.

I know it's a long write up, and sort of fluffy , but it is a testament to how perseverance and dedication finally pay off, and how support from a great community can go a long way.

Clear Skies