M42 - The Orion Nebula - DSLR

[Matt Scunthorpe]

Brilliant Shot.

[Dave Smith]

Thank you for your comments Bob and Matt.

@Bob (Cloudbuster) - You may well be right about the colour - I guess it is all down to personal taste. I might well give the processing another go, I'm still very much learning this processing lark.

Dave

[Ewan]

Hi Dave, i am looking at maybe getting an 1100 to mod this year sometime & keep my 600 as is, it would appear that both you & Gina are doing 'better' with the dslr than the Atik, is this down to the quality of the Atik or is the OSC just more suited / capable ? the difference is clearly noticable & i appreciate some of this maybe down to setup / focus but the dslr seems to be winning.

[Dave Smith]

Hi Ewan, I am not at all sure that I'm doing better with the DSLR compared with the Atik. I've only had the Atik for about a year and the last year has been particularly bad for imaging opportunities. I therefore have concentrated my CCD imaging to narrow band and in particular Ha. The CCD image of M42 above is effectively my first attempt at RGB and as the focusing was out didn't give the processing the care that I did for the DSLR version. Another factor to consider is that the CCD chip is much smaller than the DSLR and so to get sufficient field of view had to use my Megrez 72 with a focal reducer compared with the DSLR image using a Megrez 90 and no reducer (just a field flattener). I am actually very happy with both cameras and intend to continue imaging with both. I'll probably use the CCD camera when at home and the DSLR when at dark sites (e.g. Kelling) or moonless nights at home.

Having said that, having my DSLR modified was an enormous step forward in terms of image quality. I have already started saving for a new DSLR for when my current one dies. I would not like to be without it.

Dave

[Gina]

Hi Dave, i am looking at maybe getting an 1100 to mod this year sometime & keep my 600 as is, it would appear that both you & Gina are doing 'better' with the dslr than the Atik, is this down to the quality of the Atik or is the OSC just more suited / capable ? the difference is clearly noticable & i appreciate some of this maybe down to setup / focus but the dslr seems to be winning.

I wouldn't say I'm getting better images with the DSLR than the Atik exactly. What I can say is that I've had the DSLR for the best part of a year and have have quite a number of clear nights for imaging. I have therefore had plenty of practice with it and have have some nights when I've been able to collect several hours of data with it. OTOH I have had the Atik camera about a month and other kit a far shorter time - in fact the LRGB filters only a couple of days and 2 hours total imaging time. I have only had 3 clear nights since I bought the Atik camera but so far it looks more promising than the DSLRs.

The DSLR has twice the dimensions in both x and y and covers a much bigger field of view than the Atik. It's also OSC rather than mono so in some ways has different uses. For this reason I'm not planning on completely dropping the DSLR yet. What I do in the future depends on how I find things. I'm getting guide scope mounting rings to enable me to mount the Atik camera and filter wheel with camera lens on top of my ST80. That will enable me to take wide field views with the Atik. How well this works will depend on the lenses but I do have top quality Asahi SMC Takumatr lenses so I'm hopeful. The 314lL+ has a lot higher sensitivity, lower noise and higher dynamic range than the 1100D.