My First M42 Orion Nebula Image

[Domain105]

Hi all,

I thought I'd give M42 a try last night as it's something I've never imaged properly before. It was a clear night but the Birmingham light pollution was pretty awful and the moon was so close and bright. To make matters worse, I only had a short while between it appearing from behind the trees and disappearing behind my house so I managed only 3 x 300 seconds shots and 3 x 50 second shots.

Equipment used

• Skywatcher 150PDS
• Coma Corrector
• Astronomik EOS Clip filer
• Canon 450D Modified
• 9 x 50 Skywatcher guide scope
• QHY5 as my guide cam
• EQMod, Stellarium, BYEOS and PHD2 to control

Image details

• 3 x 300 lights & 3 x 50 seconds for the core
• 4 x 300 darks
• 10 x bias
• 10 x flats
• Stacked using DSS and Photoshop to layer and curves

The core is still blown out as I should have captured shorter subs

Any advice etc will be most welcome as my only other two targets ever have been M31 and M45.

 

 

 

 

[MARS1960]

Very nice,  better than my effort last night but i'll soon be guiding so things may get better.

I got 10 x 60s @ ISO 1600 and 10 x 20s @ ISO 1600 and i think my core is still blown out, i'll try 20s at ISO 800 for my shorter ones next time.

[Domain105]

Hi,

I've just seen your image too and its impressive especially with out guiding. Once you get your guiding sorted out, you will be unstoppable!

My unguided attempts were diabolical so I didn't even post them here and by the looks of it you are getting good results now and image how much better you will get when guiding.   Its a slippery slope this AP lark. I only started off just seeing what I could image using a camera on a flimsy tripod and its been non stop ever since.

Make sure you post pics once you have sorted out your guiding

[wornish]

Very nice indeed.

I am a novice at astrophotography and not in the same league but I tried to get M42 last night using my M4/3rds DSLR with a 200mm lens on a Skywatcher Star Adventurer unguided but the clouds rolled in mid way so had to give up.  Only managed 30 x 40sec lights which is not enough.

Its the next target on my list.

 

[hitmanh]

5 hours ago, wornish said:

Very nice indeed.

I am a novice at astrophotography and not in the same league but I tried to get M42 last night using my M4/3rds DSLR with a 200mm lens on a Skywatcher Star Adventurer unguided but the clouds rolled in mid way so had to give up.  Only managed 30 x 40sec lights which is not enough.

Its the next target on my list.

 

Really nice detail and colour in the OPs image, very well done.

I had a reasonably successful session earlier in the week, and went for 150 subs at 10 seconds. Really helps with the detail in the bright center while retaining enough data to pull detail through. 4/3 and 300mm worked pretty well and 10secs only needed a very rough alignment on the Skywatcher Star Adventurer (which is good for me as the north star is close to a street lamp for me).

http://hitmanh.deviantart.com/art/Orions-neb-bw-web-591269998

 

[wornish]

12 hours ago, hitmanh said:

Really nice detail and colour in the OPs image, very well done.

I had a reasonably successful session earlier in the week, and went for 150 subs at 10 seconds. Really helps with the detail in the bright center while retaining enough data to pull detail through. 4/3 and 300mm worked pretty well and 10secs only needed a very rough alignment on the Skywatcher Star Adventurer (which is good for me as the north star is close to a street lamp for me).

http://hitmanh.deviantart.com/art/Orions-neb-bw-web-591269998

I had a look at your image and it is very impressive.  Did you intentionally make it B & W ?

I also like the coverage you achieved using the 300mm.

I have a Nikon 80-400mm zoom lens which I can set at 300mm the only issue is it will be f/5.6 so probably need a slightly longer exposure, I will keep the ISO at 1600

 

[PeterCPC]

Nice image. Can I suggest reducing the blue a bit.

Peter

[hitmanh]

1 hour ago, wornish said:

I had a look at your image and it is very impressive.  Did you intentionally make it B & W ?

I also like the coverage you achieved using the 300mm.

I have a Nikon 80-400mm zoom lens which I can set at 300mm the only issue is it will be f/5.6 so probably need a slightly longer exposure, I will keep the ISO at 1600

 

Thank you.

It's cropped a touch, partly because I prefer the square format and partly because my composition sucked (the ball head is finicky with the lens due to weight and 600mm equiv FoV, so getting an object nicely centered is somewhat frustrating, so I'll often take images off center than crop to a better composition ). The B&W is because I'm struggling a little with Photoshop and getting good colour. I do have a version of this in colour, which is not actually bad (it's not as detailed as this shot), but I have no idea how I achieved it and can't repeat it! So much to learn.

[wornish]

I know exactly what you mean about getting the composition right with a narrow field of view.   I have missed a whole galaxy more than once.

Its also good to know I am not alone in getting the best out of photoshop.  The learning curve is steep.

[Domain105]

7 hours ago, PeterCPC said:

Nice image. Can I suggest reducing the blue a bit.

Peter

Hi Peter,

You're absolutely right now I look at it. It is too on the blue side.  I'll reduce the blue as per your suggestion.  Thanks for the pointer. Didn't notice at first but now I do.

Regards

[Domain105]

5 hours ago, wornish said:

I know exactly what you mean about getting the composition right with a narrow field of view.   I have missed a whole galaxy more than once.

Its also good to know I am not alone in getting the best out of photoshop.  The learning curve is steep.

+1 about the field of view. I had the camera horizontal and missed out on the running man   Lessons learned for next time!