M42, M43, Running Man

[Tim]

This series is from last monday. Stayed out till 5am, and included a flip in the sequence, however 2 hours worth of shots after the flip were unusable, not sure why, but there's an odd light on them. The remaining subs were also heavily laced with LP, as it was a quite murky night, but Pixinsight LE sorted it out pretty well.

I'm very pleased with this image for a few reasons. Firstly, its Orion, and we all love it . Secondly, I think it indicates that I am getting near to finding the sweet setting point for my new QHY8. And third, this is the first time I have ever managed to take a proper image with sequences over 10 mins long. In fact, this is made of a collection of subs ranging from 10 to 25 minutes. (no darks either, gotta love the QHY8!). Oh, and fourthly, its the first time I have managed to get the wispy outer clouds.

WO72mm with 0.8 reducer, QHY8, guided PHD, captured in Nebulosity (great app), Stacked DSS, finished in Pixinsight and CS3.

Total exposure time is 4hr 40min, no darks, 20 x flats, 20 x bias.

Thanks for looking.

Here's a link to the full version (7mb) - http://ukastronomers.com/Tim/action/download_files/fileid/83

EDIT: I've added a more traditional coloured version as well. Horses for courses and all that

TJ

(click to enlarge)

(click to enlarge)

[barkis]

A splendid bit of work again TJ. You are progressing at a rate of knots mate, and turning out some great stuff.

Ron.

[Psychobilly]

Very nice TJ

Billy...

Was that the night we were chatting on IRC...

[Tim]

mm, cant remember Peter tbh, I spent a whole night on it, and then grabbed an hour before the fog on thursday. Im going to restack the whole lot, and see if pixinsight will also deal with the wierd band that is on a couple of pics.

[Mel]

Now that's impressive - nice work! Doesn't look like you need darks, even with exposures that long - you must be quite chuffed by that.

atb

Iain

[Psychobilly]

it was your first imaging through the flip night which is why i think it was...

focus looks good...

Sorry for this slight hijack...

For all those on the tester list...

The laser wasnt fixed til late friday so were a few days behind cutting the protos... so might not be able to post them till i am back from the rally a week monday...they will be supplied unpainted...

Billy...

[Beyond_Vision]

You certainly have pulled out the wispy stuff surrounding M42.

Regards

Kevin

[RobH]

That's come out very nicely TJ....20 minute subs eh!

I was out until dawn Monday too!

Cheers

Rob

[Tim]

Hmm, it's gonna be, like M31, one of those images which is never "DONE", in the full sense of the word. So here's another iteration!

Got up to 25 mins Rob. The only thing I can see with long exposures is that the LP starts to creep through the CLS filter. There was a vicious gradient in this image, almost light beige at the bottom, and black at the top. Pixinsight dealt it a hearty blow though

Cheers

(click to enlarge)

[Psychobilly]

Horses for courses as you sadi TJ but enough data there for a myriad of different images...bit to pink for me taht one...

But all awesome...

[George]

The second in the original post is far better, first was a bit overplayed with

M42 is NOT an easy image to get right.

Great image all the same