Tagged: Dark Nebula - Adam Lundie - Eatons Hill Observatory

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.

I decided to take advantage of the only clear night for over a week to play with some new toys: an Astronomik 6nm Hα filter, and a Starlight Xpress adaptive optics unit. After learning how to calibrate and use the AO, I settled on the Horsehead Nebula as my target.

I have only a few nights experience with astrophography, so while I wait for my new camera, I'm using my wife's full frame DSLR. Since it's not so sensitive to emission nebula, I thought I'd try a dark nebula.

Often I like to see how an image is processed from start to finished. Presented in this animation are the main processing steps in sequence from my image of the Horsehead Nebula