M42 - processing suggestions please

[spacetrace]

Hello

I have attached an image of orion that I took the other night. I am personally quite pleased with it as it is one of my best so far. It is composed of 70 x 1min 20 at ISO1600, 20 x 1min 20 at ISO 800, 10 1min 20 at ISO 3200. I have included 30 flats and 10 dark frames for each setting. I stacked it using DSS. In hindsight I think I should have took some shorter exposures too to try and get more detail from the core, unless I can learn how to layer and bring out the ISO 800 detailing a bit further? anyhow I would like some opinions on how I could improve the image, or how to process it to pull out any more detail. I lack in post processing skills and have absolute minimum knowledge of GIMP / photoshop.

PS: I am not sure why it is red in the bottom right hand side, not sure if it is due to the higher ISO images that had a red glow to them from light pollution, I could change the RAW image to have tungsten lighting to remove the red hue and try stacking again?? I have lots of data that I intend on playing with over the next few days/ weeks.

Thanks for any suggestions!

[Coco]

Spacetrace... love the name.

This images is really very good indeed, the stars are nice and round and there is loads of detail, no wonder you are please with it.

In youtube search for 'using layers in photoshop', there is bucket fulls of tutorials

You might want to do 10 x 30 second exposure's for the centre core..

As said before well done..

[Venus_is_my_friend]

The detail is amazing! I am not too sure about astrophotography processes so can't give any tips, but wanted to congratulate you on some amazing detail and what is a lovely image.

[Quatermass]

Nice one lots of lovely detail if you need help with processing check out my photoshop tutorials they may help if you use photoshop there all on my blog and utube channel and theres one one there dealing with m42 and the core as its a job to ballance that core with the rest of the image but its easy done using hide all layers.

QM

[Cloengaa]

That M42 looks amazing. I sure hope I will come anywhere near the quality of it in my lifetime.

[Zul]

Very nice!

[soggybongo]

The "Great Nebula" in Orion is likely the most photographed deep space object there is. It is considered one of the most beautiful objects in the sky and a smidgen away is the horse head. lovely pic

[ollypenrice]

This will tell you clearly how to combine different exposures in Photoshop and the example is M42 so it's ideal.

Compositing 2 Different Exposures via Layer Masks

Olly

[Anweniel]

Lovely image Spacetrace, I think its likely the higher ISO is causing the red, for me though its not detracting greatly from picture in fact in terms of 'prettying up' a picture I think it adds to it, if that makes any sense?

As far as the core goes I found that anything over 30s @ISO 800 in my f6.9 was really starting to blow it out a bit and found very short exposures helpful. Experimenting with the processing really showed that it was so easy to blow out the trapezium with even a light tweak.

If I ever bump into you on a black country meet would like to compare imaging notes as an utterly under equipped novice and rubbish processer myself

[spacetrace]

Lovely image Spacetrace, I think its likely the higher ISO is causing the red, for me though its not detracting greatly from picture in fact in terms of 'prettying up' a picture I think it adds to it, if that makes any sense?

As far as the core goes I found that anything over 30s @ISO 800 in my f6.9 was really starting to blow it out a bit and found very short exposures helpful. Experimenting with the processing really showed that it was so easy to blow out the trapezium with even a light tweak.

If I ever bump into you on a black country meet would like to compare imaging notes as an utterly under equipped novice and rubbish processer myself

Thanks for the advice and comments!! and if we ever meet then id be happy to swap notes