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Baphijmm

Alnitak Region, HaRGB

Taken from New Mexico Skies, Mayhill, New Mexico. Used a Takahashi FCT-150 and an SBIG STL-11000M; data taken in red, green, blue, and Ha, combined using Ha as ...
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Taken from New Mexico Skies, Mayhill, New Mexico. Used a Takahashi FCT-150 and an SBIG STL-11000M; data taken in red, green, blue, and Ha, combined using Ha as Luminance. Centered is the well-known Horsehead Nebula, with Alnitak itself being the bright star on the left; beneath it is the lesser-known Flame Nebula.
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Aug, 2016

Views

199

Likes

Awards

Zenith Award

2020 Choice Award

Top Choice

+15

Outstanding Creativity

+12

Superb Composition

Absolute Masterpiece

Peer Award

Magnificent Capture

Top Ranks

Top 30 rank week 2

Behind The Lens

Location

This photo was taken using a remotely-controlled telescope hosted at New Mexico Skies Observatories, which is also where I work!

Time

Dead of night, probably between 10pm and midnight. It's difficult to get optical data of deep-space objects when the sun is out.

Lighting

Lighting is a difficult thing to consider when photographing nebulae; that having been said, the color of the lighting is important, as it has to be filtered in order to get good data. In this case, I utilized an HaLRGB schema, which means I used Hydrogen Balmer-alpha and Luminance data to construct the light aspects of the image, with typical red-green-blue data comprising the color.

Equipment

As I recall, this was shot through a Takahashi FCT-150, using probably an SBIG STL-11000 camera, on a Software Bisque Paramount ME robotic telescope mount.

Inspiration

Honestly, I just wanted to see what certain deep-sky objects looked like with the imaging rig we had set up. It was winter, so naturally Orion was in prime position. I also wanted to play around with using Hydrogen-alpha data as a compliment to luminance.

Editing

Absolutely! This picture is the result of multiple images, taken over I believe one night, combined together to form a color shot. In addition to the standard color stacking, I also did what are considered typical calibration frames for astronomy, namely bias, dark, and flat frames, which help account for what would otherwise be errors in the data. When combining, I used a comparison algorithm to do further noise reduction.

In my camera bag

At this point, my bag is predominantly my Nikon D850 imaging setup, with that camera, a 70-300mm Tamron lens, a 35mm f/1.8 Tamron, and a 90mm Tamron macro lens. There are other lenses that come and go, but those are my three primaries. I usually have an Altura external flash unit with me as well; I'd love to use Nikon for their lighting system, but Altura was a small fraction of the price, and it works just fine for my uses. I generally don't carry a tripod, although I probably should; I have a surprisingly steady hand. I took a halfway-decent shot of the sun through an 800mm Nikon telephoto, purely handheld.

Feedback

You really need a robotic mount and a camera capable of taking lengthy exposures, preferably one with incredible cooling. I'd recommend the Software Bisque mounts, though they are fairly pricey; you definitely get what you pay for in that market though. German-equatorial seem to be pretty popular, and would work for most lenses a photographer would care to use. A typical handheld system will not be able to get this picture, and even mounted on a tripod, the rotation of the Earth is fast enough that it would ruin the shot.

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Baphijmm

Baphijmm

Alnitak Region, HaRGB

Taken from New Mexico Skies, Mayhill, New Mexico. Used a Takahashi FCT-150 and an SBIG STL-11000M; data taken in red, green, blue, and Ha, combined using Ha as ... Read more

Behind The Lens

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Taken from New Mexico Skies, Mayhill, New Mexico. Used a Takahashi FCT-150 and an SBIG STL-11000M; data taken in red, green, blue, and Ha, combined using Ha as ...
Read more

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Earn coins, get amazing rewards. Join for free.