Is this M42?

[Gina]

Orion nebula or a trick of the light/lens?

[Daniel-K]

did you use the goto on you mount?

[x6gas]

Looks like it could be M42 to me!

[malc-c]

Without knowing what camera settings you used it's hard to tell, a 25s exposure@800 ISO through my 200P shows more detail, but less stars than you have, hence I would of expected more nebulosity in your image and a brighter core

Gut feeling is that it's not M42

[x6gas]

Without knowing what camera settings you used it's hard to tell, a 25s exposure@800 ISO through my 200P shows more detail, but less stars than you have, hence I would of expected more nebulosity in your image and a brighter core

Gut feeling is that it's not M42

Unless it's been imaged with a webcam?

Think we need to know what kit you were using to guage the image scale...

[malc-c]

Yeah... looking at the image it does seem a bit pixelated as if taken with a web cam... maybe I was a tad hasty ?

[JimStan]

Nope, sorry, I see evidence that there was some vibration going on there, as each star seems to have a "companion" almost touching the main image, and they are all the same displacement and relative brightness contrasted with the main image.

It looks like you have a single bright star, there, and NOT the nebula. You should see a definate "fan" shape, and not a fairly round smudge of light, such as you photographed.

Don't give up, and try again. Make sure you can identify the nebula visually before trying to capture it digitally. Good luck!

Jim S.

[Zul]

Yes it is m42

[Gina]

Thank you for all your replies

The mount was set to Sidereal tracking and I used CdC to point in the right direction. BUT this was taken with my 1100D DSLR mounted with the tripod bush on the scope ring. 1min exposure at ISO 1600 with Pentax Super Takumar 55mm lens. I used full aperture of f1.8 to focus using live view and then stopped down to f2.8 to take the exposures. This is full size cropped from the relatively enormous total image size. Also used curves in the GIMP to expand the histogram and a touch of unshark mask.

TBH I think I need to use the scope for nebulae, it was just that I saw this "fuzzy blob" when I scanned the image, it's in about the right place and I just wondered I think I'm expecting too much from one exposure. I spent the session experimenting with various exposures and also two areas of the sky - Orion and Andromeda. I was actually trying widefield but not having much success. Looking at other peoples widefield images it would seem to need a number of exposures stacked to bring out the constellations.

I tried again last night but as soon as I had everything set up (now using a 135mm f2.8 telephoto Pentax lens) the clouds came over and that was that! I'm trying to clutch just something from the rare clear skies that we've been having.

[x6gas]

Can you post the full-frame, unprocessed image? I'm intrigued...

[Gina]

Can you post the full-frame, unprocessed image? I'm intrigued...

Yes, I can do that later - it's on my MacBook Pro and I'm on my desktop. For some reason the SD card reader in this machine won't recognise the camera card but it's fine in the Mac.

[rocketandroll]

At 1 minute and f2.8 you should be able to see some proper shape to the whole nebula.

At 55mm you should have most, if not all of Orion in the frame... finding M42 should be easy as the belt and the sword are very bright in comparison with the relatively star free areas around them.

Doesnt look like M42 to me to be honest.

Ben

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[Gina]

At 1 minute and f2.8 you should be able to see some proper shape to the whole nebula.

At 55mm you should have most, if not all of Orion in the frame... finding M42 should be easy as the belt and the sword are very bright in comparison with the relatively star free areas around them.

Yes, I thought that.

Doesnt look like M42 to me to be honest.

I don't think it is either. I think it's a lens reflection from a bright star. It's too round - goes to show how optical effects can make objects (Source of many UFO images )

[x6gas]

I'm in the "no" camp too now.

Below is one of my M42s (Nikon D40x, prime focus on C6N) and I have resized it so that the arc of the nebula matches what looks like a similar feature in Gina's image. Overlaided (in the second image, opacity 50%) there is no alignment of the stars and it begins to be clear to me that the image scale is all wrong...

[Gina]

Agreed! Thank you