M42

[Marke998]

Hi Folks,

I was in Spain earlier this month and imaged M42. I used my EOS 1000D sitting on an EQ8 and mounted on a Takahashi 130. I took 22 photos with a 30 second exposure and stacked them in Deep Sky Stacker. I haven't done much to colour the image.

It would be great to have the image critiqued. I think the focussing is ok but probably not great and I know I have not captured all of the Running Man but hopefully, as a newbie to astrophotography (I have only taken a handful of astroimages to date), this isn't too bad. I'm very pleased with it to be honest but don't mind any comments that will help me to get better at this hobby. Also, the EQ8 and the Takahashi are not mine. The next images I plan to take will be on my motorised EQ5 with a SW MAK127 or Celestron SLT130. I expect the difference in the quality of the optics between these two scopes and the Takahashi will affect the quality of the images but would be very grateful for your views of using either scope for astro-imaging.

Thanks,

Mark.

 

[MartinB]

Hi Mark, I see you are based in Chesterfield like me.

I'll critque away.  Focus looks spot on.  Nice round stars.  You've stretched the histogram as far as reasonable for 11 mins of exposure time and have some nice nebulosity showing up.  The core is a little blown out but that is to be expected and actually helps give a sense of it's brightness.  If quite like the faint pastel redness.

I think that is a lovely early foray into astroimaging

[laudropb]

Very nice image.

[Marke998]

4 hours ago, MartinB said:

Hi Mark, I see you are based in Chesterfield like me.

I'll critque away.  Focus looks spot on.  Nice round stars.  You've stretched the histogram as far as reasonable for 11 mins of exposure time and have some nice nebulosity showing up.  The core is a little blown out but that is to be expected and actually helps give a sense of it's brightness.  If quite like the faint pastel redness.

I think that is a lovely early foray into astroimaging

Thanks Martin, I appreciate you taking time to comment. I feel like I'm on the right path now. It took me a long time to get somewhere close to getting to grips with the basics and I hope this year to focus a lot more attention on imaging. Do you ever go over to the observatory at Newbold? If so, come say hello as I'm up there most weeks.

Cheers,

Mark.

[Marke998]

4 hours ago, laudropb said:

Very nice image.

Thank you :-)

[MartinB]

3 minutes ago, Marke998 said:

Thanks Martin, I appreciate you taking time to comment. I feel like I'm on the right path now. It took me a long time to get somewhere close to getting to grips with the basics and I hope this year to focus a lot more attention on imaging. Do you ever go over to the observatory at Newbold? If so, come say hello as I'm up there most weeks.

Cheers,

Mark.

I used to go but found that when it was a clear night I preferred to be imaging in my own obsy.  I must start going again, I really should support our local astro soc.  

[ollypenrice]

One thing you might try would be doing a separate stretch of present data for the core. You could then treat it as if it were a short exposure and follow this method. http://www.astropix.com/HTML/J_DIGIT/LAYMASK.HTM

For a bit more colour without noise you could try this;

Make 2 copy layers.

Set blend mode in top layer to Soft Light and flatten onto middle layer.

Set blend mode of this to Colour, add a tiny Gaussian blur (0.5) and flatten.

Olly

[Marke998]

Thanks for the suggestions Olly, I'll give them a go when I have a bit oif time.

Cheers,

Mark.