IC434 Horsehead Nebula ( In Progress )

[Startrek]

Summer so far has been mostly cloudy with only limited opportunity to image and poor seeing conditions.
Captured a couple of hours on IC434 Horsehead Nebula from my NexDome Obs on the South Coast under Bortle 3 skies.
Managed only some Luminance and Ha data over two different nights as the cloudy weather continues so this project is a works in progress.

Location: NexDome Obs South Coast NSW
New Moon period
Bortle 3 Skies
Seeing Conditions poor to average
10" f5 Klaus Helmerich Carbon Fibre Newtonian
Skywatcher EQ8-R Pro Mount
ZWO 2600MM cooled to -10C , Lum Gain 0 and Ha Gain 100
ZWO 7 x 2" EFW
Orion 60mm guidescope with Helical focuser
ZWO290MM Guide Camera
Antlia filters

Lum 35 x 1min dithered subs
Ha 50 x 2min dithered subs
Darks from Dark Library
Flats for Lum and Ha
Flat Darks for Lum and Ha
Total integration so far just over 2 hrs

Tracking and Goto EQMOD and Stellarium
Aquisition APT
PHD2 Multistar Guiding ( 0.65 to 0.75 arc sec total )
Data reviewed, analysed , calibrated , stacked and aligned in ASTAP
Post Processed in Startools V1.8 via Compose Module

Considering poor conditions, the image scrubbed up quite well for only just of 2 hours of data. Nothing, I mean nothing beats dark skies when it comes to image quality and fidelity. Imaging from my B8 City Suburban location to my B3 dark sky location is simply chalk and cheese.

Have to wait a couple of weeks now until the next new moon to capture RGB data to complete a colour image. Some additional Luminance data would certainly help as well.

Attached native size version and crop version included reduced ST forum file size

Astrobin links for full resolution…..,
https://www.astrobin.com/dzjngm/
https://www.astrobin.com/1ggf87/

Thanks for Looking

Comments Welcome

Martin