Orion Nebulo, second try...

[milesteg]

First one was really low on the horizon and my 1st time playing with the new camera... so nothing good came of it

stacked 4 shots of 10 and 15 secs on ISO1600 and 3200 then played a little on photoshot, tho i still have no clue what i'm doing..

Celestron Nexstar 127SLT

Sony Nex 5N

any advice is welcome...

mteg

[Tadakun]

What aperture did you shoot at?

[JohnnyD333]

Its a good start. Is this picture prime focus or afocal? Shooting through a Nexstar 127 you will need longer exposures. It is a slow scope at F11 and will require much longer than 15 seconds to get more detail.

[milesteg]

It's prime focus,. I tried longer exposures but didn´t get good results... the alignment was not spot on, and the tripod/mount is pretty wobbly.

about the F11... would i notice any improvement with a focal reducer?, i was thinking on getting this..

http://www.optcorp.com/product.aspx?pid=8580&kw=focal reducer&st=2 reducer&st=2

mteg

[Quatermass]

That's a good sub for the core and keeping it for later on will help bring back the detail often lost in the core of the nebula. Longer exposures of 50 seconds at an ISO of 800 worked well for me using a canon 350D and a sky-watcher 200p on an EQ5 mount.

Using a Bahtinov Mask for focusing and getting good polar alignment will help avoid stars trailing. And try about 60 main shots with 30 darks should improve things for you.

This shot was taken 4 nights ago with dark sky's and it consists of 68 main shots taken at an ISO of 800 and with exposure times of 60,50 and 30 seconds followed by 30 darks, lights and Bias/offset shots. Then it was stacked in deep sky stacker and finally finished off in Photoshop with levels curves and layers.

Taken several shots with variation of the exposures times helps capture the core with out getting it burned out so for example...

10 at 30 seconds 10 at 50 and ten at 60 seconds followed by 30 darks at 50 seconds ect.

It takes a while but its worth the effort to get good results hope that helps. Happy to share my learning curve with you

[Quatermass]

This was my second attempt last year when I first started you soon learn that the core is going to be way to bright and take more exposures to compensate.

[JohnnyD333]

The focal reducer will certainly help, especially if you are taking images with your alignment off. You need short subs or you will get trailing. With the reducer, you should see some more detail. Good luck:)