M42 Orion Nebula - First Light with the QHY8L

[David_Pickles]

After what seemed like a long wait, I finally had a clear night this week and managed to get first light with the QHY8L that I purchased second hand on astrobuyandsell. The target was M42 and I have to say that I am quite pleased with the result, which is the result of a mere 10 x 200s exposures, captured using the QHY EZCAP software, with initial processing and stacking in Nebulosity 3 and final processing in Photoshop CS6. Equipment used is the Sky-Watcher Explorer 190MN Pro, mounted on a NEQ6 with a 2" Hutech IDAS LPS P2 filter to enhance contrast and reduce the effect of light pollution.

The Orion Nebula (M42) by Judge.pickles123, on Flickr

Any comments or advice welcomed!

[Oily]

Fantastic image David,you have every right to be pleased

[PhotoGav]

Looking great - bodes well for images to come!

[allcart]

A very fine job david. It was worth the wait.

[gingergeek]

Very nice !

[JohnC64]

A great image and nicely framed

John

[ollypenrice]

Very successful. I'd suggest some short (10 second?) exposures for the Trapezium region. You can then layer these in using a Layer Mask in Photoshop. Give the short exposures lots of saturation. You see how the Trap region is too saturated to retain any colour in the image above? Highly saturated shorts will pull colour all the way in.

Olly

[David_Pickles]

Olly, many thanks for the advice - I have some shorter exposures that I have not yet processed, although nothing as short as 10s. I will see if layering in a 45s exposure helps with this image, but will certainly take onboard your advice and capture some shorter exposures next time I get the opportunity to do some imaging.

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[ollypenrice]

Olly, many thanks for the advice - I have some shorter exposures that I have not yet processed, although nothing as short as 10s. I will see if layering in a 45s exposure helps with this image, but will certainly take onboard your advice and capture some shorter exposures next time I get the opportunity to do some imaging.

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This is good. http://www.astropix.com/HTML/J_DIGIT/LAYMASK.HTM  

Olly

[David_Pickles]

This is good. http://www.astropix.com/HTML/J_DIGIT/LAYMASK.HTM  

Olly

Thanks again Olly - I have just had a go at processing the 45s images and layering them on to the 200s exposures in Photoshop - the new image is below. I think there is definitely an improvement, with the Trapezium being a little more defined - I can now see the stars at the core more easily and less blob like.

The Orion Nebula (M42) by Judge.pickles123, on Flickr