M42

[Robd 14]

Finally got out on Friday but beaten by clouds coming in around 23:30 ish.

M42 Only managed 14 x 45seconds and 2 of those had drifted a bit too much so were disgarded. I'de had a mare of an evenig trying to align correctly

Stacked twice in ImageSXM on mac.

One set with no gamma stretching to retain as much of the trapezium as possible, the second set with a medium gamma stretch.

Obviously need more images to stack with both longer and shorter exposures. First time out with the Baader Contrast Booster - has certainly reduced the blue halo on the brighter stars.

I think that the banding at the bottom is caused by th overhead cables - had not realised they were in the way , must also learn to centre the target

So details of image:-

12 x 45s

Skywatcher 150 f5

Pentax K10D

Iso 400

Baader Contrast booster

Tweaked in Photoshop

(click to enlarge)

[MikeD 430]

Real nice job on this one, great colour and detail.

I can see the running man starting to show too. :D

Mike.

[RobH 681]

Good image Rob,

Nice depth and colour....yep, the wee running fellow is there too!

Cheers

Rob

[jgs001 1,173]

Nice image Rob

[barkis 5,570]

A very attractive Image Rob.

Plenty of detail, and swirly stuff, and the colour is great.

All for 9 minutes can't be a bad result.

Ron.

[CELESCOPE 15]

Yup excelent result on that one , core beautiful as well , first class ,

Rog

[Sam 384]

That's a great result Rob - nice and clear and wonderful colour.

[jarbi 31]

It's a nice one Rob, specially because the trapezium is not saturated. Good colors as well !

cheers,

Janos

[steppenwolf 6,709]

Some very nice detail and colouring - lovely!

[centroid 19]

Yep, its all there Rob, and its a very nice result too.

Nice work indeed!!.

Dave

[MartinB 2,578]

That's an excellent job with the data you had. Nicely balanced colour and brightness. Core looking good.

[Robd 14]

Thanks one and all.

Had another go on Saturday - had a mare of a time getting alignment set up - went thru polar align 3 times then 3 star. Finally put brain into gear ( actually getting desparate and was going thu all the set up options ) and realised I had the wrong B****y date :D - retched yankee formats ( no offense to you guys and gals on the far side of the pond but why we can't set the required date format to UK I do not know ). Any way after 90mins of messing around finally started taking pickies. Alignment was still rubbish so max 30sec exposures. The drift was still so bad that the running man had drifted off the side of the frame. Akltogether a dissapointing night

Should have another go tonight if the weather holds

Rob