M42 first attempt

[badboybubby]

Hi,

Tried to image M42 last week. First ever attempt.

I'm pretty new to both DSLR and very new to telescopes.

I took this using my Skywatcher 127 MAK and my ESO450D (unmodified) from my heavily light polluted back garden.

I could only manage 5 second exposures before the stars went fuzzy as I only have a AZGOTO mount which doesn't track too well. I used 18 5 second frames and 12 Dark frames (still don't have a clue if that's enough or even the right ratio!) then stacked them in Deep Sky Stacker.

Is this a typical image?

Also, how do Image DSO's in colour?

thanks

Any feedback appreciated....

[soggybongo]

have a go with photoshop mate,

i'm new to it all too mate. added a little colour for you but there is loads more to be done.

[rocketandroll]

First off, well done.... looking nice for a first try!

Even with an Alt/Az mount you should be able to get 20 second or so exposures from your set up without star trails.

20 minutes or so of total data is where it starts to really look nice for M42.

As a general rule... about 20 - 30 darks is a good idea, and about 10 - 20 flats should do it.

As for colour... you are shooting in colour... to get more colour out of the image, try boosting the saturation in DSS (assuming that's what you're using to stack the images) by about 20% or so.... that will help a lot. You don't need to 'add' colour to an image taken with a DSLR.

Give the levels a little push in Photoshop too if you have it, should be some more detail in there.

Ben

Hi,

Tried to image M42 last week. First ever attempt.

I'm pretty new to both DSLR and very new to telescopes.

I took this using my Skywatcher 127 MAK and my ESO450D (unmodified) from my heavily light polluted back garden.

I could only manage 5 second exposures before the stars went fuzzy as I only have a AZGOTO mount which doesn't track too well. I used 18 5 second frames and 12 Dark frames (still don't have a clue if that's enough or even the right ratio!) then stacked them in Deep Sky Stacker.

Is this a typical image?

Also, how do Image DSO's in colour?

thanks

Any feedback appreciated....

[badboybubby]

Thanks Ben for your feedback

I'll take another look at the mount and try and work out why my stars were trailing with 10 second exposures, I bumped the ISO up to 1600 as well so I'm a bit perplexed.

The more I'm getting into this the more i'm convinced I'll soon be heading for a mount like yours and and autoguiding set up!

[Beyond_Vision]

You have done well for a first attempt with an Alt/Az mount. You have got good focus thats half the battle. Hopefully you should be able to push out the exposure time and number of subs which will help.

Regards

Kevin

[ollypenrice]

Agreed. Resolving the Trapezium isn't easy and shows excellent focus. You just need longer subs, not helped by the F ratio of the Mak. Very well done indeed.

Olly

[vdb]

The image has color, you probably did not choose the wright debayer filter in dss, or even just stacked it as it was from a monochrome ccd camera dropping all color information ...

There should be topics on this forum about dss and dslr debayer ...

[Quatermass]

Thats a great start to this amazing Nebula, if you can manage 20 or 30 second subs with good focus you will be able to get much more out of it. I took my best image of M42 with 60x30second subs at an ISO of 800 for the first 30 and 1600 for the next 30. Subtract 30 darks flats and Bias offset shots and if taken from a dark sky would give you very good results. Dark skies make a very big difference so if you can get away from light pollution its worth the effort.

Have a look at my blog where you will find a lot of helpful info on image processing, great start but be warned this can get addictive and expensive, although I am a penny pinching astrophotographer!

[badboybubby]

thanks everybody, ill have another crack at M42 again soon and let you see the results....

Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk

[Chris]

Great first effort, nice trapezium stars showing their