IC434 Horsehead and NGC2024 Flame Nebula's

[nexusjeep]

So had hoped for three clear nights as wanted to get to near 20hrs of data but as usual the British weather was not going to play ball but had two nights so better than nothing . The first night was a full moon and it was bleeding close to the target as usual, but the Antlia Quad Filter did a pretty good job knocking the moonlight back, the second night was better as the moon was further off target, so even better contrast achieved in the data.

So the Image is 247 x 3min subs so 12hrs 21 mins of integration time the data was captured through Sharpcap as usual although this time I had one instance doing the actual capture and a second instance running a live stack from the folder camera which worked a lot better as I just let a script cycle on the one instance taking 4 subs / dither repeat three times then Autofocus then back to the start and repeat over and over. The instance running the live stack also had the ZWO-EAF as hardware to allow me to adjust focus on PHD2 as the Instance running the script was using the Esatto.

After capturing the frames were reprocessed through PixInsight and Affinity phot for finishing off, so the session was 247 x lights at 3 min, 100 flats I used the same flats for both nights, 1 master dark, 1 master Bias.

26.01.05 IC434 Horsehead and NGC2024 Flame by Nick Davis, on Flickr

Imaging kit : APM-LZOS 130/780 + 0.75x MR flattener/Reducer, ASI2600MC-Pro + Antlia Quad Filter + Esatto 4" Focuser + ZWO-CAA Rotator
Mount : M-UNO Synscan + Pegasus Astro Ultimate Powerbox controlling powering everything.
Guide : Starfield Gear70Q, ZWO-EAF, Altair 290M guide camera
Software: SharpCap, GSS Mount control software, PHD2, Stellarium, PixInsight, Affinity Photo

Thanks for Looking
Nick

[StarzSkies]

That’s beautiful Nick!
My wife absolutely loves it.
Expectations are getting high now,
Frank

[turfpit]

Nick

Looks like the filter did a good job of mitigating the bright moon.

Been there, got the tee-shirt

image.png (273.11 KiB) Viewed 521 times

Dave

[nexusjeep]

Hi Frank, thanks for the compliment and sorry about raising your wife's expectations did not mean to put any pressure on you it was just nice to be able to get out for a few nights.

Dave, Yep there always something that hinders the hobby or more of an obsession really possible even addiction it bloody wonderful how many clear nights the moon is in the way or there is a bleeding gale blowing as we had several clear nights over the Christmas period that were lovely in terms of the actual visibility however the trees were bent double in the wind and walking the dog involved dodging the wheelie bins that were being driven down the road.

Wonder what planning regulations are like in the Atacama

Cheers
Nick