Orion Nebula First Attempt

[Tim99]

My first attempt at the Orion Nebula.  I would appreciate any comments or suggestions.

Thanks

Tim

[orion25]

Beautiful shot! How many subs, flats, etc.? You did a great job, especially for a first attempt 

Regards,

Reggie

[PeterCPC]

Difficult to comment without knowing the capture details.

Peter

[ollypenrice]

The jet black and very dark sky, plus the way the brighter parts of the nebula appear out of nowhere, tells us that this data has been heavily black clipped.

The top image is healthy and has a long flat strip to the left of the histogram peak.

In the second image the black point has been moved much too far to the right, clipping out the faint signal. WHenever you see a histo with nothing to the left of the peak you know it's black clipped.

I'd have another go at stretching in levels and curves.

Olly

[MarsG76]

Nice for a first attempt. I agree with Olly that the blacks are clipped, and I think it's a little too blue, but a greate image nonetheless.

No doubt shot using the ED80.

[xtreemchaos]

great image Tim, you done well for your first go mate, yer the black is clipped a bit but  you gotta walk before ya can run mate. well done. thanks for sharing  charl.

[Tim99]

Thanks everyone for commenting.  It's like having private tutors!  Thanks Olly for the screenshots and explanation.  I see what you mean about the black being clipped.  Learning about processing is a brand new concept to me (obviously.)  Once I have made a go at preprocessing like this, can I take this image and try to make changes to improve it or is it better to start all over?  I guess a better question is, "where do I start in understanding what I should do and what I should not do as I use the various tools to stretch, adjust color etc?

The details of the picture are as follows.  After Orion appeared above the horizon, I had a pretty short window of time to get my subs.  I could begin to see clouds rolling in.  I was able to shoot 10 light frames at ISO1600 / 90s exposures.  I only took 5 Darks.  No Bias or Flats because I haven't learned to do those yet!  haha.

I used Nebulosity to stack the 5 Darks and make my Master Dark.  Then, I opened my subs and applied the Master Dark then Normalized, Demosiaced and stacked.  When I processed (still in Nebulosity), I played around with stretching,color balance, Curves etc.  With a basic understanding of the Histogram, I relied mostly on what i was seeing to guide me.  I didn't want to end up with a cartoonish looking result but that is pretty much what happened!  I hope to be able to understand how to achieve a more realistic or "believable" final result.  Correcting the black clipping is a start in the right direction.

Thanks again,

Tim