Finally a clear moonless night - now with more data

[Big V]

Well after months of frustrating weather, Friday night turned out to be a pleasant surprise and allowed me to get back to some astrophotography. So here is the Horse Head nebula, which I am planning to spend a few more hours on as the weather permits.

Well I have been able to add more data and decided on a crop..

This shot was taken by attaching my camera to a 20 inch telescope. The telescope tracks the object across the sky and I take a series of images ranging from 10 mintes in duration out to 30 minutes for a total of 4 hours for this final version.

[chrisk]

oh please man...thats far too small to be enjoying this sort of quality image.
is this shot thru a telescope ? more info pls !

[Murray Foote]

Amazing.

I presume the semicircular white banding visible in the second image is lens diffraction (?). I also presume you weren't using a diffraction filter so that the starburst patterns were also a product of lens diffraction (?).

[Big V]

NO, the star burst patterns are a result of the 4 vane secondary mirror holder and the the banding is a result of an extremely bright blue star just off the frame of the sensor but visible in the field of view. This is a newtonian design telescope I am using with a 20 inch primary mirror.

[Matt. K]

A touch of flash fill would have helped saturate the colours a little...........seriously, stunning images.

[biggerry]

yep, that there are some stars and a bit of space dust

nice shot BigV, bit hard to critique but if it counts for anything, I reckon the composition works well and I prefer the first image to that of the second.

[!~DeViNe~DaRkNeSs~!]

Beautiful! wish I could figure out my shitty we scope to see anything other than the moon.

[Killakoala]

with a 20 inch primary mirror.

There's no wonder the image is so good, plus your skill and experience.