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First Crack at Orion Nebula M42

Mark1970Vintage

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Mark1970Vintage

Mark1970Vintage

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I was blown away when I first visually observed the Orion Nebula about a month or so ago and I've been waiting to get a photo of it ever since. Tonight the wait was over. I know this is nothing compared to some of the shots on here but I am very pleased with it for a first go. Taken from a fairly light polluted area. 30 second exposure @ ISO 800 with a Canon 40D attached with a T ring to a Skywatcher Explorer 150 on an EQ5 pro mount.

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Orion Nebula by MarkLandonPhotography, on Flickr

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Mark1970Vintage

Mark1970Vintage

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Baz ,not sure what you mean by magnification ?. The telescope is an explorer 150p which has a focal length of 750mm. Effectively this is like putting a dirty great big lens on the front of your camera. The camera was attached directly to the scope with a T ring (prime focus ?) vs through the eye peice... so there was no magnification, from an eye peice, just the prime focus of a 750mm "lens".

The shot was cropped slightly which makes it look bigger than it actually was in the viewfinder. I'd say I lost about half of the frame in cropping to portrait format ... effectively "zooming in" by a factor of 2 so lets guess at an equivalent of 1500mm focal length.

I'm sure someone could come along and explain this more eloquently.

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jackrussell0232

jackrussell0232

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Really great shot, captures plenty of detail.

If I were to suggest any tweaks, you could remove the overall red hint in the background in LR quite simply by adjusting the red curves or hue/saturation slider, or even the colour temp/tint. That should help you to get a blacker background. But I think this is a good capture. Love the arty signature too.

Always best to get the shots when you can, because you can always play around with the file on a cloudy night.

Jack

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bomberbaz

bomberbaz

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Really great shot, captures plenty of detail.

If I were to suggest any tweaks, you could remove the overall red hint in the background in LR quite simply by adjusting the red curves or hue/saturation slider, or even the colour temp/tint. That should help you to get a blacker background. But I think this is a good capture. Love the arty signature too.

Always best to get the shots when you can, because you can always play around with the file on a cloudy night.

Jack

I agree but not completely, the red background adds to its mystery and beauty but a slight reduction would might make it standout better.

Love the large star near the bottom, excuse my ignorance but is that the star Ori?

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bomberbaz

bomberbaz

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Just been checking S&T sky atlas and stellarium and found that M42 is to the right of my location this time of the year, worst LP area around me so no chance. Its february when its coming round to my SW which is good, so hopefully get some good views then.

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Mark1970Vintage

Mark1970Vintage

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I like the diffraction spikes on the star bottom right too. I'm not sure which one it is. I hear you about the red tint to the background. I'll have a go at stacking the 4 or 5 exposures I got and taking them into photoshop for a bit more tweaking than is possible just in Lightroom. I'm still amazed at how much detail showed up in this single shot. When I saw it on the camera screen I whooped with amazement. I think i'm going to like capturing nebulas. Next on my target list is the Horsehead which has always fascinated me since I saw photos of it a few years ago. I never dreamed I would be able to capture a shot of it myself.

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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28.1x magnification but since its effectively zoomed by factor of 2 it roughly becomes 56.2x mag.

According to this handy DSLR Magnification Calculator, so please don't shoot the messenger :grin:

No, this is really not meaningful - though I've no desire to shoot anybody!! How big's your monitor? Have you zoomed in? (See what I mean?) Nobody talks about magnification in astrophotography. We talk about plate scale or image scale, which is arcseconds on the sky translated into mm on the chip. (In fairness though I couldn't follow the link.) If you get a print made, is it a big one or a small one? Etc etc.

Not only is the image a good one, but it probably has more to give. Very impressive and for a single sub... rather stunning! Looking forward to more.

Olly

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