Orion and horsehead with 50mm lens 20.1.2013

[Jannis]

So, was time for some more play with my 50mm lens and standard camera tripod as i didn't have time to set up my scope.

Lens was set to F/2.8, ISO 3200, and 5 sec exposures. 530 frames was stacked. 72 dark, 30 flat and 76 bias. Stacked in DSS, processed in PS.

Camera is an unmodded T2i/550d.

I know pic is quite noisy, and M42 core is a bit too washed out, but i'm surpriced i could catch even a hint of the flame nebula, and the horsehead i didn't think would be possible to catch anything off at all.

The moon was quite close to it, and M42 was rather low when i took this, so was struggelig quite a lot with the grandient, but i think it turned out roughly OK. I'm satisfied at least!

[Pig]

wow so may stars

[Tinker1947]

wow so may stars

Exactly what i thought, the image is ok as well...

[Jannis]

Thanks Yes, many stars indeed. They don't have enough star color for my taste though, but i think i can fix that at a later point, as the colors was there originally, but got lost in the processing. Was mainly focusing on the nebulas for now.

I also see now though, on another display, that the gradient is still quite visable in the pic on the left side. I guess that can be fixed a little better, but will wait with that untill i have time to correct everything on my calibrated display.

Processing on an uncalibrated display really isn't the best idea, i realice that now, lol.

[Pig]

I dont know anything about AP, but that is a truly lovely image

[Davie27]

I like this too

[Jannis]

Thanks guys.

I tried to correct a tiny bit more on it, to lower the gradient and some of the stars that might have been a bit too green, but don't know it it helped much. Is this any better then the first one?

[Jannis]

I'm guessing most people these days have enough to do with processing their own pics, but if anyone would like to have a go at processing it, feel free to. The TIF is available here: https://www.dropbox....k flat bias.TIF

I think it shuold be possible to drag out more details then what i've managed, but i'm still on the beginner-level in PS.

[Leebert]

Thanks for posting this. I think the image is fantastic. I really like these widefield views.

I hope you don't mind but I have downloaded it to practise on as I am a newbie on the processing side as I haven't seen a clear sky for months let alone do any decent imaging!

I'll post up the results if I can get anything worth posting

[cstew]

I'm surprised at how much detail you can pick up from just a 50mm lens! Will definetely have to give this a go with mine. Is it the "plastic fantastic" canon ef 50mm f/1.8 lens you have used?

[Jannis]

Thanks.

Leebert: i don't mind at all, not. In fact, i love to see what other people can do with teh same data. I often learn a lot of processing tips and tricks like that, hehe.

cstew: no, i used the F/1.4 lens. The 1.8 lens will be good for this as well as far as i've seen, but that too need to be set to at least 2.8 to get decent looking stars. Would be so nice if starts looked perfect at 1.4 though. It would suck in light and details like a black hole, hehe.

[fwm891]

Well I had a quick try on this - you're gradient still needs lots of work.....

[Jannis]

The pic is quite small, but looks nice. Thanks for giving it a try.

Yeah, my gradients are quite strong on the unprocessed pic, and i'm not very good at removing it either. Might have another go at this target when it's higher up in the sky to make it a bit easier.

I love the way you got the star colors out, i will absolutely give this another go at processing with a star mask to get the colors back. And seeing M42 like that, i think i will just have to process M42 and horsehead separatly. Looks much more natural like that then the way i made it look.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Small image but really nice. I just got a s/h EOS 450D (modded) and will get a few adapters to attach my old Contax lenses. I hope I can give this region of the sky a bash with my old 50 F/1.4 and 85 F/1.4.

[cstew]

I'm looking forward to the weather clearing up so I can have a go at something like this, will try my 50 & 85mm lenses, might also try out my widest 16mm lens on my samsung. When the weather will clear up, I know not, currently cloudy, cold and blowing a force 10 gale!

[Scott]

had a quick play but i'm very new at ps

hope you don't mind:)

Scott

[barkis]

Splendid Image.

I do like these wide field Images. The nebulous objects embedded in a lovely star field.

really do Impress.

Ron.

[stargazerlily]

Wow, amazing, just amazing.

Did you use APT (or some other system) to take all those images? For such a huge amount of images I would imagine using an hand held remote would be out of the question. How long did you pause between taking each exposure?

Thanks

Pete

[Jannis]

thanks.I didn't use anything actually.

I have magic lantern installed in the camera, so i used the buildt in timer to take picture every 6 sec, with a 5 sec exposure.

I have mirror lockup enabled, so with this timer settings it gives the sensor 1 sec to cool down between each shoot, and also 1 sec to stabilize the camera from any shaking the mirror would have caused.

1 sec cooldown isn't much, but concidering it's only 5 sec exposures, and it was well below -12c, sensor heat wasn't an issue at all.

I simply had camera set up on a fairly big parking place - started the timer and walked one round. Then moved the camera a tiny bit to recenter the target, started the timer and walked another round.

And so on, and so on, and so on - untill i couldn't feel my hands, legs and feet any more. Then i coverd the lens, started the timer again, and on i went again. Walking quite a few more rounds to take the darks.

Then i packed together the tripod and started to walk home, taking bias while i walked.

Flats i took indoors up close to a white wall with the camera at the same focus settings while the camera was still cold. Could only take a limited number of flats before lens dewed up completly from the huge temperature change, but at least i was able to take them at the exact same focus settings like this.

Then i stacked in DSS with Median Kappa-Sigma Clipping (99% sure i used this, if not, i used Kappa-Sigma Clipping), and processed in PS.

[Jannis]

This is a bit old thread now, but i did some sligh reprocessing of the final pic, and a different crop - and thought I'd just update this thread as well.

I think I made M42 look a bit better, the horsehead a more natural deep-faint-red, and flame maybe got a little deeper orange as well.

Horsehead obviously got a lot fainter though, but on the print it was still clearly visable when watched in daylight.

I did this reprocess to print it for my album, and it turned out quite ncie on a 10*15cm / 4*6in glossy print at least.

Still surpriced I captured such details from only 5s exposures, with a 50mm lens, and on a static tripod...

[wxsatuser]

Very nice for a simple set-up.