Yet another M42 ;-)

[Dave Sexton]

I know that M42 is an obvious and somewhat easy target at present, but I tried imaging this over Christmas and the result was dreadful. I am somewhat happier with the new image that I post here, taken on January 30, 2008. It is a stack of 36 subs, each of 240s captured at prime focus of my GSO 150mm f/5 Newtonian using a QHY8. The subs were captured and stacked using Nebulosity v1.6.0 with post processing performed using AIP4WIN v2.1.10. I had intended to take some shorter subs to get the core better defined, but cloud stopped play :-(

(click to enlarge)

[MikeD]

Great result, beautiful detail and colour.

You can always get the core another night, although I do like images of m42 with a bright core.

Mike.

[steppenwolf]

This is a lovely image, Dave and I can see that you have re-worked from the earlier version I saw a couple of days ago. There doesn't appear to be a problem with the alignment does there?

I just love the way this object can be interpreted in so many ways, popular target or not, I never tire of seeing images like this!