Yes, it's another M42 :)

[Luis Campos]

Hi all,

This past weekend afther 8 months I went to my dark (ish) sky site to test another 450D mono camera, how I missed this!!! Lovely clear skies and a 20% iluminated moon still hanging high with nearby Venus, what a peacefull moment...

Believe it or not afther so many years of astro imaging I was yet to get a deep image of M42 and it's surroundings, yes I wanted a bit of faint dust, the moon wasn't helping much with contrast and my dark sky site is not so dark after all, but I can't complain, this is as good as it gets near a big city (Lisbon)

So here it is, this is only 15x420 sec. total exposure @ 1600 ISO and 2Cº on the sensor and a bunch of 20 sec. subs for the core, with only 105 min. exposure I'm quite happy with the result, not so happy with the halos on brighter stars, the decision to stack the LPR filter and the IR cut was a bad idea...

Feeling like a zombie and needing some sleep, I couldn't take any longer, so I was too short on exposure but it's still ok for a short time I guess This is a "quicky" process, I will get back at it to improve noise on the dust and pull a bit more contrast on the main nebula maybe.

Setup: SW ED80 with 0.8X reducer, Canon 450D monomoded & TEC Cooled, full spectrum (Astronomik MC clear glass equiped), Baader moon & skyglow LP filter + Baader IR cut (stacked), EQ6 mount

https://www.flickr.c...08/16350179816/

Well, hope you enjoy,

Cheers,

Luís

[Luis Campos]

New version made, I wasn't happy with the background of the previous version, this one is much more natural and balanced I think, and the background is well under control and still showing lots of dust

https://www.flickr.c...08/16391383635/

Cheers,

[lensman57]

New version made, I wasn't happy with the background of the previous version, this one is much more natural and balanced I think, and the background is well under control and still showing lots of dust

https://www.flickr.c...08/16391383635/

Cheers,

This is a lovely image Luis, the mono 450d seems to work well for you.

A.G

[Luis Campos]

Many thanks A.G.