M42

[andrewluck]

This is an image of M42 taken on friday evening using the Breckland society's 20" Alt/Az scope and Atik 383 camera.

Subframes are 30 seconds red, green and blue (20 each) frames binned 2x2.

Images are combined in Maxim, background subraction and histogram stretch in PixInsight and then high-pass filtering, colour balance and levels adjustments in Photoshop.

Andrew

[jammo]

I must say, this is a beautiful image

[andrewluck]

I see you're in Norfolk. Pay us a visit some time. We have a twitter account (@breckland_astro) which we try and update whenever the observatory is open.

Andrew

[Mark72]

Yes, indeed beautiful work!

Mark

[Gina]

Nice one Are you going to add a whole lot more to make a mosaic?

[stellawolf]

Great image well done

[andrewluck]

Now there's a thought . The 20" is not blessed with a huge FOV given it's 2.4m focal length.

The answer is, possibly. However, being an Alt/Az scope causes some issues associated with frame rotation. Images taken at different times will have the diffraction spikes pointing in different directions. You can see this already in the image in this thread. One of our members does have a project running covering the Veil nebula in postage stamp sized images so it is possible, if time consuming (http://farawaythings.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/cygnus-supernova-remnant.html). It's not the ideal instrument for this type of object though.

I've reprocessed the image to bring out more of the shadow detail. Image is posted on my blog: http://blog.andrewluck.me.uk

Cheers

Andrew

[sologuitarist61]

A great image that is full of drama