A windy m42

[Ryan-y]

Hey guys, hope everyone had a good Christmas. Having only got my ed80 and 350d in about May this year and after imaging m51 I've been counting the days until winter came around again. So on Friday I decided to have a go at everyone's right of passage, the Orion Nebula. It was pretty windy and my garden isn't very well protected from the fields but I just wanted to get back in the swing of things so I set everything up and hoped for the best. I took 90 60sec exposures but ended up throwing 46 away! (I'm not saying rushed polar alignment wasn't partly to blame) so this is my quick process of that data. I don't really know what I'm doing in ps so no star masks etc. just a little play with levels and curves. There is a strange artifact in the top left corner, I don't really know what that is, it only showed up after stacking, I don't think my flats were very good, and I know the core is over exposed, but other than that what does everyone think?

Sw ed80

Heq5

350d

No guiding

44 lights

44darks

15 flats

[Ryan-y]

Is that a bit better?!

[Alien 13]

I like it ive only just done my 1st M42 too and still on the steep learning curve that is post processing still i have the data and like you need to figure out the next stage using star masks, shorter exposures for the core etc.

Cant realy see the artifacts you mentioned unless its the shadowy spider looking darker patch but im sure flats will sort it.

Great job anyway.

Alan

[Pete Presland]

that is a very nice image, the running man nebula looks good as well. i can see the artifact you are talking about, is it in all your subs?

[Ryan-y]

Thanks guys.

No, I think it only showed up after stacking. It looks a lot more obvious on the raw version, showing as three dark wavey semi circular lines. When I converted the image to JPEG it didn't give me the option to control the compression and image quality etc. so I might do it again because it looks a lot noisier than the original. Also I might try re-stacking the image to see if I can get to the bottom of the waves lines!

Alien 13 - I think steep is an understatement! Better get on YouTube!

TheWannabeAstronomer - it's really easy to find, you can see it with the naked eye, you want to be looking at Orion's sword rather than his belt. I hope you do find it as it's an awesome object to observe, especially with a nice wide ep.

[frugal]

Very nice photo. As you say, the core looks a little blown out, but the rest of the image is nice and clean. Far nicer than the really noisy shots I have managed of M42.