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Another M42 ...... Yawn, yawn!

swag72

By swag72
in Imaging - Deep Sky

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swag72

swag72

Posted
Posted

This is such a popular target at this time of the year.... there are literally hundreds of M42's posted so I apologise for another one.... If you've had enough of them by now then please look away now :) 

This was one of the very first targets I did 5 years ago when I started. I vowed that I wouldn't do near it again!! Finally I thought that just perhaps I was ready to take it on again and see if I could do it justice. I've done a side by side comparison of then and now if anyone is remotely interested. I thought it would be good to have a visual of progress over time. This has actually been taken with a real combination of equipment as I first looked at M42 in Ha and luminance a couple of years ago.

All comments and thoughts welcomed as there's always improvements to be made and things to be changed. This has been sitting on the PC for about a week so far and I think I've finished it now!

Details
M: Avalon Linear Fast Reverse and Mesu 200
T: Takahashi FSQ85 0.73x and AT 8" RC CF
C: QSI690-wsg with 3nm Ha filter and Hutech IDAS filter, QSI683-wsg with Baader red, green and blue filters

14x1800s Ha (FSQ85) 16x45s Ha (FSQ85) 79x40s Ha (2x2 bin AT 8" RC)
31x600s Lum (FSQ85)
Red - 50x300s (FSQ85), 15x10s, 20x60s
Green - 50x300s (FSQ85), 15x10s, 20x60s
Blue - 50x300s (FSQ85), 15x10s, 20x60s

There is a total of 26 hours, 32 minutes and 10 seconds

You can see a larger res version on my website here

M42_SGL.jpg

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Davey-T

Davey-T

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Very nice Sara, I think M42 images are like M31 images, you can't have too many and they're all different, yours is a cut above so will encourage others to improve.

Haven't imaged it seriously for longer than you as there is too much other stuff, given the time limits of UK skies and RGB is tricky from my back garden :grin:

Dave

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JemC

JemC

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That is a stunning image Sara,
i agree with the other comments that you can't have enough of such a wonderful target, it is also a favourite of mine,
 

It is images like this and those posted by other members (to many to name) that give me the motivation to try and produce images like this(we can all dream), although there is a very long winding and bumpy road for me to go down yet :icon_biggrin: but persevere i will,

 

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ollypenrice

ollypenrice

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That's a good 'un! The framing is particularly fine because you have M42 sitting in the crook of that very dark X shaped dust feature which I normally associate with Ha widefields. Excellent to see it here. 

:evil4:If you're lucky this will keep you away from M42 for another six years but I don't think there's a permanent cure for the 'Icon Itch.' I have to say that only three years after my last effort I'm now lying awake at night wondering if I couldn't just...

Aaaarrgghhhh....

Olly

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swag72

swag72

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Thanks Alan, Mike, Paddy and Chris :) I did find this very difficult, not least because I rarely do RGB images as I prefer narrowband! Also, imaging to the south for me is difficult with light pollution from Spains 3rd city 20-30km away.

But it's done now and that itch has been scratched for now ............ I note Olly's comment above and hope I can resist the itch for a long time to come :D 

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swag72

swag72

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On 05/01/2017 at 15:49, cfpendock said:

That extra 10 seconds on top of the 26 hours and 32 minutes certainly makes the difference...

 

Who would have known that 10s would be such a deal breaker - Without it the data was useless :D 

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swag72

swag72

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On 05/01/2017 at 16:13, Nova2000 said:

You mentioned above that you used 2 different scopes, how did you combine the images? Did you use one for the core or something? 

I combined the images using Registar - Brilliant software that really does match all sorts of image scales!

Ha is the major contributor to the dust and the nebula detail, but there are a couple of bits that only show in luminance (as well as the Running Man) so I did some luminance and blended it in the only the relevant areas. Also, in M42 I noticed that there was an area where the detail was almost blurred (I've noticed this in many peoples short focal length data as it goes) and so I trained the 8" RC on that specific area and then used Registar again to match the image scales to blend that in that gave some detail to the area I just wasn't happy with.

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