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First M42

Slim

By Slim
in Imaging - Deep Sky

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Slim

Slim

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Finally got some clear skies this weekend so I could stay up late into the night to get some decent views of M42. I had imaged it last year without much success with an LX modded webcam but this is my first Orion 'season' with a DSLR. Taken with the gear in my sig and consists of 6 x 300" lights, 3 X 300" darks, 20 flats and 20 bias all at ISO 400. Had a few issues with PHD so the tracking wasn't the best but I'm reasonably happy with the result. Looking forward to to imaging it again and getting a lot more data.

M4211112dss5minG.jpg

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Slim

Slim

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Thats a really nice M42, congrats on your first proper M42 image. Next time try upping your ISO to 800 or 1600 you will be able to drop your sub time, and you should get alot more faint wavy bits:)

Keiran

Thanks for the tip will give it a go.

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Slim

Slim

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Thanks for everyone's comments. Maybe I misunderstand the ISO setting. I assumed, probably wrongly, that because M42 was such a bright target a low ISO would suit it better. Can someone explain what the ISO setting does please?

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Slim

Slim

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So I took peoples advice and upped the ISO to 800, and with the addition of a laser collimator and coma corrector which arrived from FLO yesterday I managed to create my first composite image! This is 9 x 180" lights at ISO 800, 5 darks, composited with 10 x 10" lights at ISO 800, darks.

M42151112DSSGcomp.jpg

Even though the seeing was pretty bad last night and some high cloud and mist meant I couldn't get as much data as I would have liked, I'm over the moon with it, collimation has made a huge difference I think as well as the coma corrector and making a composite of two images wasn't quite the witchcraft I was expecting!

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mindburner

mindburner

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gee thats good, especially if it's your 1st m42. The dust clouds are really starting to come though. Take a few shorter shots of the core (10 secs) and blend them in with photoshop or similar. I found it haps to keep the core from getting too bright when stacking.

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Slim

Slim

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Well I thought I'd add another image to this thread to show the sort of progress that I have made in just a week. Seeing was pretty good last night and I managed to get 68 x 60" at ISO 800 with 10 darks and 20 lights. I've also tried some of the more advanced processing techniques detailed in Every Photon Counts and I'm pretty amazed at the results. You always hear people say that the number of good subs is the key and I think this image proves it. 68 is easily the most subs I've stacked for any image and this is by some margin my best image. I just wish there wasn't as many compression artefacts when posting it here!

M42171112dss1glscaledecon_filteredfinish.jpg

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