Alt-Az M42

[Anweniel]

Yeah Im sure everyone has seen about all they can handle of The Great Orion Nebula, but opted for an easier to find target for my second tippytoe into AP. I know its also not a great capture and the processing is way over done but any comments/suggestions greatly appreciated.

Mount: Skywatcher Supertrak (Motorised Alt-azi)

Telescope: Megrez 90

Camera: Canon 1000D (unmodded) @ ISO 800

Lights: 6x6s 10x20s 17x30s

Flats x30

Darks 3x6s 3x20s 3x30s

Bias x21

M42.tif

[NickK]

Great start with Alt-Az!

I think a little more focus should make the central trap stars smaller in diameter and it will help pull out the detail of the nebula.

[Digz]

Thats a pretty good image and goes to show what can be achieved with an alt-az mount!

[Anweniel]

Thanks for the comments, I suspected that the focus had shifted. Was late coming home and with Winter disappearing and the prospect of a clear night wanted to take the opportunity for imaging orion before it passed over my neighbours rooftop.

In the excitement of anticipation obviously curtailed sufficient cool down time.

May try for more data tonight

[Anweniel]

Ok had another quick play, adding a further 3x 1min exposures that I thought had overblown the trapezium massively but hopefully the shorter subs have saveed me a little??

Also tweaked the saturation and a more subtle histogram stretch.

Mono and Colour version (hopefully this appears more natural colouration?)

As always comments/advice appreciated

[Anweniel]

A quick retry during brief breaks in the cloud last thursday.

The idea was to reframe to see if I could get anything out of the running man - I think this has been achieved although due to those annoying clouds I did not capture much in the way of light frames. Also still getting to grips with processing the stack and to get the fainter parts the noise is really getting more evident :/ Also in doing so I've blown out the trap massively.

All comments/advice/scruntiny appreciated as always