Horse Head Nebula

It's weekend again! After a tiring work week it's time to unwind and relax. And what a better way to amuse myself than to do image processing. I have a set of color subs of the Horse head / Flame Nebula taken way back January 2009 in Caliraya, Laguna. It's 14 subs at 3 minutes each taken during one of our sessions there. That time I used my stock Canon 400D. Then, after a year I got hold of a H-alpha filter and made first light with it capturing the same object from our home. I accumulated 15 H-alpha subs of 4 minutes each using a modified Canon 350d. After getting some experience from doing composites of the Rosette and Crescent Nebula, I tried again combining the color and H-alpha subs. I was not expecting a stunner due to meager number of subs but still hoped for an improvement over my previous Horse head image. I first combined the red channel of the full color shot with the H-alpha then re-combined it again with the color image. I guessed that was called an HaR-RGB composite image. The H-alpha regions stood out while the natural star colors were maintained although some color noise were evident. Not bad, I supposed. Looking at the previous color image, the composite HaRGB image now seemed a lot better. What a really perfect way to spend the weekend!

50mm Finderscope to a Guidescope

I have always been wondering if I could lower the weight of my set-up since the GPD2 mount is already in its maximum load capacity. It has been carrying the Megrez 90, the Zenithstar 80ED, guidecam and the DSLR plus the mounting plate and rings. A friend even commented that the Zenithstar 80ED is an overkill for a guidescope as it could be a respectable imaging scope. So, with all these overcast skies and rains, my hands were itching to do something that can relieve the heavy guidescope. After a quick inventory of my astro toys, I noticed that I have a William Optics 7X50 finderscope that was seldom used. My challenge was to adapt the QHY5 guider to the tube. Dismantling the finder, I found out that it had an M42T thread so all I need to look for is a M42T to 1.25 inch adapter. Fortunately, I had a Vixen flip mirror which have two M42T to 1.25 inch adapters. I quickly set up the finder with the QHY5 camera, focused a distant building and measured the required distance of the adapter. Without any hesitation, I got a hacksaw blade, wore my gloves and goggles and started cutting the adapter tube to the desired length. I used a fine file to grind the rough edges and finished it with a sandpaper. The finished adapter mated smoothly with the finderscope half. I inserted the QHY5, and tested the whole assembly. To my pleasant surprise, the finderscope focused perfectly to the distant building. Now, I will just have to wait for a clear night to test it on a star and see if it is worthy to be renamed "guidescope"!

Astro-imaging Off-Season

Its too late for galaxy season and August is not the time for DSO imaging. But who says its not time for image-processing? I guess there's no better time to re-process a few old images than now when rain and overcast skies abound. Using newly learned techniques in processing I tried improving my images of the Leo triplet and my favorite Rosette Nebula. Subtle improvements nonetheless, I was happy how it turned out.

Bode's & Cigar Galactic Pair

I suddenly found myself with too much time on my hands while on an outside assignment. So. instead of watching TV, I started looking at my past images and played around with Photoshop and wondered if I can still improve it. I was not really happy with my M81 & M82 image so I opened it and experimented processing it again in Photoshop. This time, I applied some of new processing techniques I gathered since. The resulting new image somehow made me smile.