M42 with additional data.

[Bizibilder]

Another clear night has allowed me to just about double my M42 data using the Evostar ED120APO, Reducer, Canon 1000D(unmodded) combo. I set up OK but, in my haste to collect as much data as I could due to a short "window" due to neighbours trees, managed to make a complete pig's ear of getting EQMOD to talk to the scope! And managed to mess up the camera rotation so it ended up about 15° "out" resulting in a heavy crop to get a decent image. I bet we've all done that at some time

Anyway, top image is original 1h 10min and lower is a total of 2h 10 min. All in 5min subs (with a SW LP filter). The core is presently some 30 second subs to fill in a bit of detail - next job is to get a few "core" subs to improve that area. Comments and critique, as always, appreciated.

[x6gas]

Cool. That extra data is really bringing out some fine detail.

As you say, you need to control burn out in the core - I'm sure you can do something with the 30 second subs you already have - just a case of selectively blending different images together - I do it by having differently stretch stacks and sticking them together. Takes a bit of practice - and don't let anyone tell you that M42 is an easy object to process! - but the results are worth it.

I got AstroArt 5 for Christmas and it is really good and I use PhotoPlus 10 which came free with December's Sky at Night magazine to do the layer blending...