First picture of Orion Nebula

[Costas Soler]

Hi! 

I stayed up for quite a while waiting to take this picture at the beginning of October.... I've dreamed of doing this with a dedicated imaging telescope since I was a little kid, and I finally did it! This is a 2hr 33mn exposure of the Orion Nebula. I did it at ISO 400, with no darks (too lazy, but I'll do it before the next imaging night). I did this from my roof in the middle of Berkeley (my roof has a view of Oakland and San Francisco skylines, so I am in no means at a dark sky site!). I used my 8" Orion Newtonian Astrograph, an Orion SSAG, Orion Atlas Mount, an Astronomik CSL, and a Baader MPCCII. I processed this with Deep Sky Stacker and Photoshop CS6. Let me know how I can improve next time, and what to keep doing! Thanks!

[alacant]

Hi. I think it's great. Crop to remove the stacking overhang or stack without the displaced frame(s)? Don't bother with the darks but include flats and bias are all I can think of. HTH.

[wimvb]

Great image. As said, removing the band on the left will improve the image a lot. To show detail in the core, duplicate the unstretched image. Then stretch just enough to show the trapezium and combine the two images, using a mask.

Thanks for sharing

[Moonshed]

That's a good image, especially from a site that suffers from some light pollution. Well done on your first Orion!