Orion Nebula - First Attempt.

[Stargazer33]

Here is my first ever attempt at the Orion Nebula, M42.

It was taken with an unmodified Canon 1100D through a Celestron C8, on a CG5-GT mount, unguided.

Subs were 15 seconds at ISO 800 and 14 of 50 were stacked in DSS. No darks, flats biases were used.

Some post production done in PS7 and a bit in Microsoft Office Picture Manager!

It's quite grainy but I'm fairly happy with it being my first attempt.

Hopefully next time I can get my guide scope set up and so I will get better subs.

Thanks for looking!

[knobby]

Looks good to me

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Good start!

[nephilim]

I'd be really happy with that for a first go mate, especially considering they were short, unguided subs. Nice one!

Steve

[Stargazer33]

Thanks guys. It's amazing how much a little encouragement can lift you when you think you haven't done too well.

We all try to run before we can walk and sometimes I think we expect too much from ourselves, especially when we look at some of the fantastic work posted here on SGL, I know I do!

Kind comments and advice (constructive criticism ) is always welcome.

Thanks again.

[Gina]

That's a great start, really good and far far better than my first go at M42 I can see we'll be getting some great images from you a bit later on - well done

[Stargazer33]

Thanks Gina, that's much appreciated.

I think the one piece of equipment I really need to get next in order to help my astro-photography is patience!

I think my collimation is ever so slightly off too. Using the laptop screen to check focus last night, the stars went from having a slight flare on one side to having a slight flare on the other going through the point of best focus. That's a job for another night though.

[t1bbbst3r]

Did this with a skymax 127 on Sunday, also a first attempt (that I could get a result from anyhow), was ~6/20 30 second exp's & ~12/20 10 second exp's stacked in d-s-s then layered in photoshop! I have a r.a motor.

*Guiding is for cheaters ;-)!

[Stargazer33]

There are some really nice colours in that capture, well done! You've also managed not to burn out the heart of the nebula around the trapezium. I lost the definition in mine. I thought I might try doing more, shorter, subs next time and see if I can get more circular stars and more detail at the centre of the nebula.

What format were your frames in? I wanted to layer my stack in Photoshop 7 (I was using a tiff file) but the layer option wasn't available. Perhaps I should try and read a users guide on Photoshop!!!!

[Gina]

Yes, Bryan, you certainly needenormous amounts of patience!

[t1bbbst3r]

There are some really nice colours in that capture, well done! You've also managed not to burn out the heart of the nebula around the trapezium. I lost the definition in mine. I thought I might try doing more, shorter, subs next time and see if I can get more circular stars and more detail at the centre of the nebula.

What format were your frames in? I wanted to layer my stack in Photoshop 7 (I was using a tiff file) but the layer option wasn't available. Perhaps I should try and read a users guide on Photoshop!!!!

I used tiffs too, but saved out of photoshop in j-peg format. You should be able to layer, when you get round to doing shorter subs next time, load the two pictures in, add new layer then c&p the shorter exposed frame ontop of that one, erase the edges, go to image-> adjust the brightness + tone a bit to match it up a bit better & in a 'layer mask' (O in a square button/ bottom right) on that layer do a filter-> gausian blur round the edges with the brush tool selected, put the opaqueness to around 50% then it should look a bit like mine, but if its a bit off you can add a new layer again, c&p the original image ontop of the 'shorter exposed 'later 2' image & make it as translucent as you can until you dont notice anything if that makes sense. then just go to layer->flatten image, your done :-)!

Cheers!

[Stargazer33]

Thanks for that t1bbbst3r, I will give it a go later today if I can make time.

I am off down the town shortly so I will pop into my local library to see if they have a 'dummies guide to photoshop'.

[starman1969]

Looks great.

[Stargazer33]

Thanks Starman.

Here's my attempt at using the 'Layers' command in PS7:

I copied a single frame into the new top layer and then used the 'eraser' tool to gradually remove the top layer around the trapezium to show the lightened nebulosity on the layer below. This allowed me to keep the stars of the trapezium at their original single frame brightness so that they didn't burn out like in the original post above.

[andyo]

great start and a nice reprocess to show the trapezium

[badgerchap]

Nice start! Some darks would help that a treat, and a quick tickle of the curves and it will be a lovely image. Great detail in the core.

[Gina]

Thanks Starman.

Here's my attempt at using the 'Layers' command in PS7:

I copied a single frame into the new top layer and then used the 'eraser' tool to gradually remove the top layer around the trapezium to show the lightened nebulosity on the layer below. This allowed me to keep the stars of the trapezium at their original single frame brightness so that they didn't burn out like in the original post above.

That's great processing and a superb image as a result

[Stargazer33]

Thanks everyone, a very nice start to an otherwise miserable Monday morning - thick cloud, cold, snow & cloud forecast for the next few days! Hopefully it will clear before PANSTARRS is at a decent hight to observe.

Badgerchap: Hoping to get some darks, bias and even flat frames (if I can get my laptop to display a white screen) next time I manage to grab a session between the cloudy nights.

[Stargazer33]

I was trawling through astronomy videos on You Tube the other night and found a very interesting tutorial on processing astro images here:

So I gave it a go with my old M42 captures. Unfortunately my version of Photoshop will only work with 8 bit tif files for some reason. I can load 16 bit tif files but I can't work with them.

Anyway, this is what I managed to do with my old data:

I think it is quite an improvement on my last effort. So when Orion makes its return later in the year I shall be acquiring a lot more data to produce what I hope will be my best effort yet with my newly acquired processing skills.

EDIT: I'm not too sure where or why I have lost the top part of the frame? I think it must have been in the stacking phase of DSS.