M42 "normal" colours?

[Dave 2112]

Hello all,

While taking first steps in astrophotography and processing, and playing with an image of Orion I realised I didn't know what colours I should be trying to bring out in the image. Through the scope its a blue grey cloud, and I seem to be ending up with blue in the image, in the unprocessed camera (not modded) shots its greenish/red. But a lot of the images on here seem to be mostly in shades of reds/pink. Is red the sort of normal or usual colour for Orion or does it highlight most detail?

[ScottS]

It appears greenish to me (visually).

[ollypenrice]

It's predominantly an Ha emission object (red) but has very significant reflection nebulosity which is mainly blue. Tricky!

Olly

[lensman57]

Hello all,

While taking first steps in astrophotography and processing, and playing with an image of Orion I realised I didn't know what colours I should be trying to bring out in the image. Through the scope its a blue grey cloud, and I seem to be ending up with blue in the image, in the unprocessed camera (not modded) shots its greenish/red. But a lot of the images on here seem to be mostly in shades of reds/pink. Is red the sort of normal or usual colour for Orion or does it highlight most detail?

An unmodded camera will only allow a small percentage of the red Ha through ( about 20% at best ) but the blue of the reflection part of the nebula almost entirely gets to the sensor so the blue/green dominates. The problem with a modded camera is that the situation is reversed so the Ha will dominate and the blue will have to be brought back in post processing.

A.G