A picture of Alnitak. Also a horse, but mostly Alnitak. (Mike Jaworski)

A picture of Alnitak. Also a horse, but mostly Alnitak.

Revision title: Reprocessed - with redone darks and biases.

I jest with the title, but only a little. I intended an image of the Horsehead nebula. I've never imaged it before so this is my first serious attempt. I don't think I appreciated how dim it is and how bright Alnitak is right next to it. In this image, at least, I've tried to pay attention to image framing and composition. The "final" revision is a cropped version that tried and maintain reasonable star shapes at the edges. I'll upload a revision of the nearly-full frame as well.

One thing I'm noticing more and more in my recent images is that my modified Astromaster has ginormous stars. I believe the sources are related to the size of the vanes, the small aperture, and a signifcant amount of damage to the secondary (it's very old - was a garage-sale scope). In other images, it is not quite as distracting, but in this one it is really too much.

The first revision is only a little over 3 hours of data. I'm thinking my rig will need 4-5x that amount, at least, to really do this target any sort of justice.

Original
B
Final
C
D

B

Title: Uncropped image.

Description: Here is the uncropped image for those that want to see what's going on outside the frame. Lots of stray light on the left!

Uploaded: ...

C

Title: Reprocessed - with redone darks and biases.

Description: The first time I did this processing there was a problem with my dark frames. I redid those and was able to calibrate the images. When reprocessing I ended up making different choices (when do we not?) and there is an image here. A bit less Alnitak, but also a bit more green. The stars are cleaner to my eye as well.

Uploaded: ...

D

Title: Uncropped image after redone darks

Description: As before, I've included the full-processed image so people can see what's going on outside the bounds of the cropped image. Revision C has all the details for this revision.

Uploaded: ...

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	5387225
PixInsight job	US2U3LFB9DR6CH7KGBQSCMF2YSC3AOO5
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	05h41m03s.95
RA (top/left)	05h38m24s.62
RA (top/right)	05h41m32s.57
RA (bottom/right)	05h43m43s.20
RA (bottom/left)	05h40m35s.23

Dec (center)	-02°27′45″.4
Dec (top/left)	-02°24′15″.5
Dec (top/right)	-03°07′04″.0
Dec (bottom/right)	-02°31′14″.4
Dec (bottom/left)	-01°48′26″.1

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