M42 DSLR image

[Stardust]

Orion & Running man Nebula. Spent a long time getting to this stage. It is made up of 17x180,20x120,27x60,20x30,20x15 second exposures, Canon 1100D CLS CCD filter & Tv 85 refractor. First real attempt now I'm understanding photoshop a little bit now. Only learnt last night how to overlay two different images, which is one reason I haven't tried before, quite happy with the way it's turned out 

[Christopher Davenport]

Well done on getting this far. I love the fine detail you are pulling out.

What you want now is 15x600 which you can stack cappa sigma and bring in as a greyscale lum layer to bring out the wispy white stuff.

I am going to be controversial and state that you can produce a better image by stacking your images as HDR and then using curves and masks to balance out the image.

I have similar data and I found that if I stack the 60s and the 600s I get a cleaner image. Not sure why, it may be due to changing seeing conditions during capture.

Again though, really a massive first attempt and way better than most peoples first. Keep up the good work.

[Stardust]

Thanks Chris,learnt a lot with this one if mainly what not to do..lol...  I enjoyed my M42 HA experiments but after seeing a friends  single Atik image still have fainter detail than a 10x10 min stack I've been researching CCD like mad this week in preparation fro Astrofest tomorrow. we'll see.

[Davey-T]

Lovely stuff David, and more to come from it, beats my feeble attempt into a cocked hat

Dave

[Stardust]

Thanks Dave, you're probably right that there is more, I'm sure this was the best I could get without it getting noisy. I was pleased to have this much, looks like a cosmic jellyfish.

[GraemeC]

Lovely image, well done!

[Christopher Davenport]

Thanks Chris,learnt a lot with this one if mainly what not to do..lol...  I enjoyed my M42 HA experiments but after seeing a friends  single Atik image still have fainter detail than a 10x10 min stack I've been researching CCD like mad this week in preparation fro Astrofest tomorrow. we'll see.

oooh if you thinking of CCD, I would not rush it.

Both the atik 383l and QHY9 are amazing mono CCD, which behave a lot like a DSLR, but without the noise and a lot more sensitive. (Kodak sensor)

Otherwise if you deeper pockets (Sony sensor) then their are many nice CCD's made by QSI ... check ian king website.

Good luck on your hunt.

[Stardust]

QSI are out of my price range but I have been looking at an Atik 428 and 460. I think 6 people in the local society have various models and one very experienced imager bought a 460 today at Astrofest with an attractive discount, some good deals by all accounts, hope there's some left for tomorrow. I been mulling it over for longer than a few days really and had advice that these two models are a better match to my scopes the the 314/414 I was originally looking at. I've been to an imaging/processing session with a friends atik so know what I'm getting into with mono even though I was for an OSC to start with.