M42 & M45 (Plus some friends)

[Grant]

These are all from Thursday night but spent all day today processing them! Was out from 8:30pm until around 5am!! What a night

All with 350D & ED80! (I love this scope!)

M45 - iso1600, 10 lights 10 darks

(click to enlarge)

M42 - iso 1600 - 20 lights no darks, binned

(click to enlarge)

And a first attempt at M33 (needs a lot more exposure!)

(click to enlarge)

M37

(click to enlarge)

And laughingly, my first ever go at M1, the smallest object ever!

(click to enlarge)

Cheers,

Grant

[cygnusx1]

Your M45 and M42 are :thumbup:

Excellent colour and deep contrast!

[GazOC]

Brilliant mate and thats an understatement!

[SteelRat]

Ah Grant - that M45 is flippin great 8) Really 8) Good shots matey.

[Grant]

Thanks guys, I've had a big grin on my face since they popped out of the stacker

[GazOC]

Thanks guys, I've had a big grin on my face since they popped out of the stacker

I bet you did!!

[SteelRat]

It'd be tough t'get a better pleiades shot 8)

[MartinB]

Bags of nebulosity in that M45 Grant. You've done a superb job with M42 - lovely colour and very nicely processed. Definetely was some night!

[Grant]

The M42 has taken the longest to process, I had 3 lots of data, all with different settings I'd been playing with on the camera and then I wanted to try different stacking/processing techniques...

You can see the other results here: http://stargazrs.com/stargazrs/action/photos/ I think the one I posted is the best though.

My biggest battle I think is drawing out the detail and getting rid of light pollution without also pulling out to much noise. I wonder if that's the biggest downside of a DSLR? The noise.

[Kai]

M45 does it for me Grant , bags of fuzzy stuff

[CELESCOPE]

great results all round there Grant , can imagine the grin on your face lol ., i think now we can say welcome to the world of imaging , excellent results mate .

Rog

[steppenwolf]

Nice set of images, especially the Running Man and M42

[anthony]

Like the nebulosity around M45. Marathon session!

Anthony

[Andrew*]

Man, those are superb!!

It's obvious you like them, cause you've changed your avatar!!

Really love those shots Grant

Andrew

[mik]

Superb set of images that have made my day got to go shopping with wife and kids now grrr.

Mick.

[barkis]

They are all wonderful images Grant. Even little Tiny Tim M1 may be small, but still beautiful.

If I was pressed for two, it would be M45 and M42, but not fair on the rest, as they all shine.

You had a great night, and that's always something to be thankful for in 2007.

Ron.

[centroid]

A very nice collection of images Grant, 'top job'!!

M1 is not the easiest of objects, as being 'relatively' small, it requires a bit of mag, and exposure time.

Dave

[Grant]

Thanks everyone!

I'm itching to get out tonight - just having some modifications to my warm room done to make life a little easier - an internal door to the observatory rather than having to walk all the way around and through two doors... Also worked out from the trials I did with these images some settings I want to use so I want to revisit M45 and M42 with more subs, dark frames and bias too...

Fingers crossed the clouds stay away!