M42 Orion Nebula - I know it's common but it's my first attempt!

[sagramore]

Hello everyone - this is my first post in this subforum. I did put this image in a specific "130-PDS" thread but I hope that putting it here for greater exposure is okay? If not, mods, please let me know and I apologise!

I very recently bought myself a 130-PDS and NEQ6 Pro in order to start astrophotography "properly" - I upgraded from a very cheap Skywatcher ST80 on EQ1 with added clock drive, this was limiting me to around 15-20 second exposures and it was a HUGE pain to align and centre any target at all. I still don't have any guiding yet, but I simply love this scope and mount combo and I can't wait to get a guide cam to piggyback the ST80 for longer subs. 

Anyway, enough story - here is my first real attempt at M42 and pretty much my second ever photo with this new setup. I'm really happy with it given my suburban location, lack of guiding, and lack of general experience with taking and processing photos! Thank you for looking and I appreciate any comments or advice too. I actually took three separate photos using 30s, 60s, and 120s subs then stacked and processed each one. I then took the resulting three photos and did a manual merge in Photoshop to make a sort of "HDR" composition. It isn't perfect and I think I can probably draw a bit more detail out of the core, but I'm glad I did it because the 120s image alone was completely overexposed and the 30s image alone lacked a lot of the nicer details.

Practice makes perfect!

 

Great Orion Nebula (M42, M43) and Running Man Nebula (NGC 1973/5/7)
2016-03-07, near Swindon, England

Gear:
Skywatcher 130-PDS with 0.9x coma corrector (585 mm, f/4.5)
Skywatcher NEQ6-Pro Synscan (unguided)
Canon EOS 550D (unmodified)

Acquisition:
- AstrophotographyTools (APT) using APT dithering (unguided)
- 15 x 120s, 17 x 60s, 20 x 30s = total 57 minutes @ ISO 800
- 33 flats + library bias & darks
- Each exposure stacked separately in DeepSkyStacker and post-processed in Photoshop CC 2015
- Final merge of the three different exposures in Photoshop to create manual HDR image

High res Flickr link: Here

[todd8137]

Another golden image thanks for sharing 

keep looking up

Pat

[belfieldi]

That's a great image and is excellent for a 1st attempt. I've recently bought a 130P-DS and am hoping to have a go at M32, if my image turns out half as good as yours, I'll be smiling.

 

Clear skies

Ian

[sagramore]

Thank you both!

11 minutes ago, belfieldi said:

*snip*

Ian

It would appear we have some very similar equipment! I even have the 200P dob as well. I am looking to get the ZWO ASI120MC as well to use with the ST80 as a guiding setup. How do you find the camera? I'd like to use it for some planetary work too if I can get a good enough barlow  

[belfieldi]

It does look like we have very similar kit, though I wish I'd waited a little bit longer for an NEQ6 instead of rushing into the EQ5. I've only played with the ZWO ASI120MC-S so far, but thing I've captured some half decent .avi files of the Moon and Jupiter. I still need to get the hang of the processing side before I post anything. The forecast isn't looking to bad for this evening, so I'm going to have a bash at guiding, using the ZWO. 

[The Admiral]

That's a great result sagramore, great things expected from you in the future!

Ian

[Starlight 1]

Looking at post and something telling me its going to be nice, Mmm that is nice to good for up here.

[laudropb]

Very nice image.

[sagramore]

Thanks for your kind comments, everybody! Big grin on my face

 

56 minutes ago, belfieldi said:

It does look like we have very similar kit, though I wish I'd waited a little bit longer for an NEQ6 instead of rushing into the EQ5. I've only played with the ZWO ASI120MC-S so far, but thing I've captured some half decent .avi files of the Moon and Jupiter. I still need to get the hang of the processing side before I post anything. The forecast isn't looking to bad for this evening, so I'm going to have a bash at guiding, using the ZWO. 

Good luck with the guiding, I am interested to know how you get on

[belfieldi]

17 minutes ago, sagramore said:

Thanks for your kind comments, everybody! Big grin on my face

 

Good luck with the guiding, I am interested to know how you get on

I'm sure there will be loud cries for help or lots or cursing om here when I do try

[pyrasanth]

I think you have done a great job & have hit the nail right on the head with this image. I'm no expert but I do try & dabble but HDR is not an area I've looked at. I know that objects like M42 have such a massive dynamic range that a camera cannot depict all the ranges like the human eye so HDR comes to the rescue. An other example is M31 where the core saturates in under 2 minutess but the outer regions may take 10 minutes plus.

You have now taken my brain into new directions & I can see a whole new swathe of re-imaging about to happen- shame on you-my wife is never going to see me again at bedtime on a clear night (don't know whether that is good or bad)

[astro mick]

Exerllent.

Mick.

[RSM]

really nice image and great exposure levels across a subject which has a wide range of brightnesses, you clearly know your way around PS and layering - something I'm yet to get round to doing. Thanks for posting.

[KY Cygni]

very nice image great stuff

 

[Ruud]

It's a really good image! Very pleasant framing too.

[kendg]

Nice image. Yes it's common but it never gets old.

 

Thanks

[sagramore]

Again, thank you everybody for the very kind comments!

3 hours ago, RSM said:

really nice image and great exposure levels across a subject which has a wide range of brightnesses, you clearly know your way around PS and layering - something I'm yet to get round to doing. Thanks for posting.

I can very highly recommend these Youtube tutorials by Doug German - watching them improved my image processing 10-fold and they're very simple to understand.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLw07hZOy20U9P8UDFL8onpkzZljbt4bO5

[RSM]

2 minutes ago, sagramore said:

Again, thank you everybody for the very kind comments!

I can very highly recommend these Youtube tutorials by Doug German - watching them improved my image processing 10-fold and they're very simple to understand.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLw07hZOy20U9P8UDFL8onpkzZljbt4bO5

cheers for the links.