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The classic Orion with an ED80

graemlourens

By graemlourens
in Imaging - Deep Sky

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graemlourens

graemlourens

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Hi everybody.

I shot M42 as my first target when i started Astrophotography 2.5 years ago and it was the most rewarding target, as i could do it with my Alt/Az Evolution mount (but i'd not dare to publish it now!)

Now that i'm setup for much longer exposures i never considered M42, as i was more focused on Narrowband 20-min-exposure targets.
For some reason i though i'll give it a shot, especially that capturing the core is not that trivial, and i had never done hdr exposure combination before, so my fingers tingled with joy of doing something new.

Only having 2.5 hours of exposure (LRGB) it felt very strange having all the data in ONE night, and still having 9 hours for a different target! :)

Any feedback warmly welcome. I hope i didn't miss anything or make a dud somewhere...

M42.thumb.jpg.ae9087fae3462d5dcd8e31ff95b6dfc4.jpg

Kind regards, Graem

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graemlourens

graemlourens

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7 hours ago, Ouroboros said:

Lovely natural looking image. I wish I'd made that much progress in two and a half years. 

Thank you so much! It came with a high price tag as well.... :/ but i'm still convinced it was worth it :)

5 hours ago, coatesg said:

That's a lovely shot!

Thank you very much for your kind words.

Graem

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graemlourens

graemlourens

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10 hours ago, PatrickGilliland said:

Nice work Gream, nice to have that benchmark object to return to.  Think everything on this is just about right.  Lots of quality and detail without any aggression.  Super job.

Thank you Paddy! I guess you brought it to the point about the benchmark. This is maybe why i avoided it for so long, as after doing many more complex objects, the expectations to not fail on this one are gigantic.

But this one is an 'oooohhh, and wooooww' much more than some 28h Cave nebula, and feels very rewarding. Can't wait to print this one 1 x 0.7 meters (my standard print size)

Kind regards, Graem

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Shibby

Shibby

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Really nice! Loads of subtle detail & colour across the whole range and I like the star colour a lot. If I had one question, it would be whether there could be more colour in the core? It looks a little monochrome compared to the rest of the nebula.

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graemlourens

graemlourens

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2 hours ago, Shibby said:

Really nice! Loads of subtle detail & colour across the whole range and I like the star colour a lot. If I had one question, it would be whether there could be more colour in the core? It looks a little monochrome compared to the rest of the nebula.

Lewis, you are right! I do have to go back to the RGB data and see whats cooking there... looking at other images i do see that the core generally is less saturated in color, but still most have more colour than mine. I know that i did not blow out the core on the RGB-Data but i also didn't do HDR on the RGB (only on L). Let me get back to you on that one!

Kind regards, Graem

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graemlourens

graemlourens

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On 4/11/2017 at 15:00, Shibby said:

Really nice! Loads of subtle detail & colour across the whole range and I like the star colour a lot. If I had one question, it would be whether there could be more colour in the core? It looks a little monochrome compared to the rest of the nebula.

I went over the core again, and you're right... i lost color in the core due to the stretching of the RGB image, i only focused on the core in Lum and forgot about RGB! I didn't blow out the core, but the values were very high, whereby all turns white...

It was an easy fix though because most of the work was in L that i didn't have to touch. Here's the revisited core!

Thank you again... i would have not seen that ever!

M42.thumb.jpg.c8c05ece2157e809cd1f050a4ed13e2d.jpg

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Ouroboros

Ouroboros

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I know I've commented already, but this really is a stunning image. It's makes this nebular look almost organic, like a living biological entity.  

You know, looking at amateur images now its difficult to imagine that they can possibly get any better. I refer to other people's images, not my own. The technology available to amateurs is now so good.  OK we might see better and better images of more difficult objects as time goes on. But it's difficult to imagine images of classic objects like M42 or M31 etc being bettered. This seems to have all happened in the last couple or three years, basically as cooled CCDs became available. Actually it's kind of a bit off putting for those of us still struggling with older technology. You look at some of these stunning images and you think why am I bothering?   

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jabeoo1

jabeoo1

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As I often state, I know nothing about imaging and understand little of the terminology.  However that looks beautiful, well done.  Next time I look at that smudge in the eyepiece, its images like this that remain in the minds eye.

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graemlourens

graemlourens

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9 hours ago, steppenwolf said:

That's lovely - the core region (Trapezium) looks very good now in your second image - plenty of nice dust too.

Thank you Steve for your warm words!

8 hours ago, Jedi2014 said:

Hi Graem,

the second version really turns me on. You nailed it. Perfect balance between crisp details, strong colors and depth. Congrats.

Jens

Thank you Jens. I like to try to keep the images look natural, in color and contrast (whereby natural is very relative), so i'm happy that you agree! :)

8 hours ago, Ouroboros said:

I know I've commented already, but this really is a stunning image. It's makes this nebular look almost organic, like a living biological entity.  

You know, looking at amateur images now its difficult to imagine that they can possibly get any better. I refer to other people's images, not my own. The technology available to amateurs is now so good.  OK we might see better and better images of more difficult objects as time goes on. But it's difficult to imagine images of classic objects like M42 or M31 etc being bettered. This seems to have all happened in the last couple or three years, basically as cooled CCDs became available. Actually it's kind of a bit off putting for those of us still struggling with older technology. You look at some of these stunning images and you think why am I bothering?   

Indeed technology has made this all possible for amateurs. The availability of cables, devices, internet has transformed so many parts of our live, whereby i think that its only starting for astrophotography and astronomy in general! Its still a niche market, but i suspect that the revolution of arduino and raspberry will bring it to a whole new level. In my case the observatory and being able to program software myself has allowed me to keep my sleep and do AP at the same time. Without this, i'd not have gotten so deep into this hobby as i can not afford to spend nights out (even if its very pleasing and i occasionally do it, but only on our land with a warm house near by!). Respekt to those who get the same results, but spending nights after nights outside.

Concerning the question 'why am i bothering'. I've asked myself this a lot, as absolutely every image i have ever taken, has been taken by thousand others, and in better quality. So i finally stopped asking myself the question and solved the problem that way as there are only 2 choices, continue or stop. And stopping is not an option!

8 hours ago, jabeoo1 said:

As I often state, I know nothing about imaging and understand little of the terminology.  However that looks beautiful, well done.  Next time I look at that smudge in the eyepiece, its images like this that remain in the minds eye.

Thank you for your kind words! I'm sure somebody will soon develop a device to control our eye exposure length. It will be 'nightvision 3.0' i'm sure :) Hope they add Bias & Dark subtraction as well (do our eye cells have 'read noise' ? )

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graemlourens

graemlourens

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19 hours ago, Rodd said:

I love the framing too Graem.  And the background looks flat, with no gradients.  Great job,

Rodd

Thank you Rodd. Framing was extremely lucky. I have had the same rotation angle since i setup the observatory and it has (until now) never let me down! Its 77 degrees, just in case somebody is fighting to get a good angle for a fov of approx 1 degree :)

Kind regards, Graem

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