M42 - 1st one this season

[malc-c]

Well the seeing conditions improved enough for me to venture out once more tonight and I'm pleased I did.

Here is one 180s sub of M42, my 1st real attempt at this wonderful jewel in the night sky. I've run off 4 more of these, so will have some fun processing and stacking them to see what comes out later in the morning...... time for bed now !

[JimStan]

Looks like you are off to a good start ! Carry on !

Jim S.

[malc-c]

Strange how sometimes stacking and stretching etc don't look as good as a single sub ! - seems a tad grainy

Here's the stacked and processed image

[Earl]

Very nice.

If I may advise rotate your camera 90 degrees so you pick up the running man also. it should just squeeze in there

[Uranium235]

Its a good start, have you tried working on the trapezium? In PS you can layer in a less stretched version (or one with shorter subs), then you will be able to see the inner stars of M42. Its a method you can apply to any object with a high dynamic range.

Compositing 2 Different Exposures via Layer Masks

[malc-c]

Thanks for the tips guys...next time I'm out I'll give it a try

[malc-c]

It's strange how sometimes you seem to get better results taking just the single image and processing that, than all this fuffing about with stacking images.

Hopefully this comes out just as good on the web as it does on my PC. Its a single 3min image (jpeg not raw), and minimal tweaks in PS for curves and colour balance

EDIT: - as I thought, usual issues when uploading jpeg - the image on the PC has non of the green in the middle

[rocketandroll]

Tell you what, stacking or not... those subs are beautifully crisp and sharp. I recon an hour or so of those subs stacked will give you what you want in terms of depth of detail AND smoothness. Throw in a layer of 20 second subs for the trap and you'll have something stunning.

Ben

[malc-c]

Ben, thanks for the encouragement. Next time I'm out and conditions are good I'll run off another 10 subs at the same, and some short ones for the trap and see what comes up. For a 1st "serious" attempt I#m pleased with what I got, Its a shame a lot of the coloration and quality of the image is lost when uploading to the web / forum

[spaceboy]

Great start Malcolm. I have decided to play around with DSLR imaging but doubt I will get anything near as good as your result. Keep up the good work.

[malc-c]

Great start Malcolm. I have decided to play around with DSLR imaging but doubt I will get anything near as good as your result. Keep up the good work.

Thanks,

Trust me it's not that difficult with M42... it's a nice bright object and very photogenic