New Mount, New Guiding Optics, and a Test Shot of the Horsehead Nebula
27-Feb-2016
After switching from a Celestron CGEM DX to a Skywatcher EQ8 Pro, and from off-axis guiding to on-axis guiding I am very happy with the results. This is a 25 minute test shot of the Horsehead Nebula.
Image:
- 5x 300s Ha bin3x3 + 10x flat + 50x dark + 120x bias
Total exposure time: 25 minutes.
Hardware:
- Celestron EdgeHD 1100
- Skywatcher EQ8 Pro Mount
- Celestron 0.7x EdgeHD focal reducer
- QSI 683-ws Camera @ -15°C
- Astronomik Type 2c LRGB filters
- Astronomik Ha 6nm filter
- Orion StarShoot Autoguider
- Innovations Foresight On Axis Guider
- Starlight Xpress Adaptive Optics
Location:
- Orange zone in Brisbane, Australia. (Bortle 7)
Software:
- Captured with AstroArt 6
- Guiding with PHD2 + PHD_Dither
- Aladin 8.0: Planning & camera alignment.
- CCDInspector: Image analysis & rejection
- CCDStack 2+: Calibrate, align, normalize, stack, curves.
- Photoshop CC: Reduce noise, high pass filter, contrast, false color.