First attempt at Orion nebular

[concal]

This is my first go at imaging. Taken using my Skywatcher 200p scope, with a canon 500d. 20 30sec subs iso3200, 10 15 sec subs iso3200, 5 5 sec subs iso 3200. dark flats and bias to suit. all stacked and combined in Nebulosity 3. Any comments good or bad would be great, Thanks Mark

[martymac]

thats a first attempt?

wow, good work.

[concal]

Thankyou. Its my first attempt at a Nebular. I have taken a few photos of the Moon. But this is my first attempt at stacking using Nebulosity.

[concal]

Thankyou. This is my first go at a Nebular. I have taken a few shots of the moon, but my first using stacked images in nebulosity.

[Scott]

liking it. great stuff

[Jannis]

It's a nice start, much better then what my first m42 looked like for sure.

For the processing, you've clipped the black level a bit much i'd say. Looks unnatural when you clip it too much.

Also, for such relatively short exposures (30s or less) i think i would stay to one exposure lenght to begin with, instead of several exposures. Then when you're satisfied with the stacked and processed resulth, start with adding shorter exposures if you end up with an overexposed core, and longer if you want more of the fainter outer nebula.

[Matt Scunthorpe]

Thats better than anything ive taken before

[concal]

Thanks for all the comments. And thankyou Jannis for the information. If I just use a singel exposure would I need to use flats and darks etc with it. Of is it best just process a single exposure to start with?

[Jannis]

For a single exposure (as in one picture/frame) you will still get the same vignetting, so flats are still recommended to correct this, just like with a stacked picture.

You will also still have hot pixels, so a dark frame is also recommended. However, for this, if you're just using one single frame, just enable "long exposure noise reduction" in the cameras CF menu and the camera will automatically take a dark frame for you and combine it with the light frame.

But i didn't mean that you should focus on a single frame/picture though, if that's what you thought i ment. I ment to stay with one exposure lenght instead of different lenghts. As in, stay with only 30s subs, and just take more of them - instead of taking some 30s, some 20s, some 10s and so on.

30s at F/5 is in the "astro-photo category" a relatively short exposure, and it's usually short enough to recover much of the core of M42 as well even when you shoot at ISO 3200.

[concal]

I see what you mean now Jannis. New to all of this so its taking me some time to get my head around everything. Only just getting my head around tracking. Still having a few issues with that. As I cant seem to track for longer than 30 secs without trails. My polar alignment is ok. And I do a drift alignment on 2 separate stars but its still not perfect.... not sure why?

[Jannis]

Could be several reasons. I'm not too good with this either, so i went ahead and started to guide instead after 2 years of unguided. What mount do you have? I asume EQ5 or higher?

Have you checked that your scope is properly balanced, and that your polar scope is aligned properly? Also that your scope is pointing straight (can be corrected more or less with 3-star alignment).

Asume you have set the correct GPS location and time on the handcontroller?

With my HEQ5 mount and 200PDS, i usually couldn't get more then about 30s either without guiding, and mount used to miss targets more often then not. And not by just a little either - by so much target wasn't even within the finderscopes FOV.

However, this winter i took apart my entire mount and re-lubricated it, and the smoothness is like night and day. The grease i used gets quite sticky and hard in colder temperatures, but at least it operates more smoothly. Also, i found that my polar scope was slightly missaligned.

Unfortunatly i think i damaged my DEC gear a little though, so at a coupple of positions it jams for a sec and then jumps over and contineues like normal. But i still find it to be a lot more accurate then before, and now the scope actually point at the target i set it to...

[concal]

I have a EQ5 mount but I only use a single axis motor. I have cheaked and tested my polar scope and that seems fine. I always make sure my mount is perfectly level and the scope is balanced with camera and cables connected. I am very tempted to go guided but funds at the moment are tight, though I have read that you can get a guide system on a budget. And that I can use my finder scope as a guide scope but not sure if this would be good enough. I may also take my mount apart and regrease everything, but its only a year old, will it need doing?

Thankyou so much for all your help.