Orion Cloud Complex

[Maxrayne]

So I know Orion has been down now for a while, but I just wanted to share this one. For me, it was a literal labour of love. Orion took on a more personal meaning for me at the tale end of last year, much more than just a target in the night sky. I won't bore you all with details, other than it was all very Romeo and Juliet. 

Anyway, the one night we went for a drive the other side of Hereford (this was mid February), took a firepit, hot chocolate, jacket potatoes and some very warm coats! It was a blustery night, the intervalometer was acting up and Orion was still in Hereford's light dome kinda. 

But, still managed to get some images with the 18-55 kit lens on the trusty Nikon 5300 despite all of that. Had all but given up on the stacking and processing 2 months later but decided to run it thru Sequator as DSS wasn't working for me. Was 2am, I was dead tired from work and my good old thyroid in full on flare. Happened to yawn, rub my eyes and momentarily refocus them on the laptop screen...to realise I could just very faintly make out Barnard's Loop. Spent the next couple of days rerunning the stack thru Sequator with different parameters to finally produce the attached image.

It's messy, it's noisy as hell, it's nowhere near technically correct, but for ME it's a very bittersweet image (two days later Romeo and Juliet parted ways) and a reminder of what happy is.

Anyway, I just wanted to share it.

[RT65CB-SWL]

It is definetly very colouful!  

[Maxrayne]

19 hours ago, Philip R said:

It is definetly very colouful!  

"Crap" is the word I'd use personally ?

I'm under no illusions about it in all honesty, but considering the limitations I was under at the time, and what the image itself means to me personally, I'm just happy with it.

 

That said, now I have a better idea of what I'm doing, roll on next Orion season.....