The Orion and Running Man Nebula - From a good night

[Laurin Dave]

After 4 clear nights in a row the forecast for Tuesday night here was for it to cloud over fairly early but when I looked out at 6 it was clear (although still forecast by all as cloudy)..  I started things up anyway and ran the sequence expecting it to fail whilst we were at the pub quiz.. It did, but not until I0pm..  So here it is 3 x120s each RGB plus 5X600s each RGB plus a few hours of Ha from this time last year.  All captured on my Esprit150/SX-46/Mesu combo.  Processed in Pixinsight and Photoshop, the different exposure lengths were combined using HDR Composition in Pixinsight, I also used Pixinsight's HDR Multiscale transform to bring out the structure and detail around the Trapezium but blended this in Photoshop with the original image as I find the result rather too much.  I also tried blending the Ha with Red in Photoshop but didn't like the result (unsurprisingly it all went a bit red), I then tried using the Ha as a light luminance in Photoshop which I think worked well and is in this image

Anyway  here its....Hope you like it and thanks for looking.

ps.. we won the pub quiz £180 donated to Alzheimers, Asthma UK and Cancer Research so all in all a very good night.

Dave

 

 

[DaveS]

Oh yes, I do like that. Loads of detail in the swirling dust clouds, and the core hasn't burned out.

[geoflewis]

Very nice Dave and despite not shooting any very short exposures, zooming the very bright core still reveals both the trapezium and your excellent processing skills. A great night's work all round, with you donating your quiz winnings to charity

[gorann]

Very nice Dave!

When you blended in Ha with red (and found it too red), did you use blend mode Lighten? That one only puts Ha into parts where it is brighter than the red channel signal.

Cheers

Göran

[Laurin Dave]

7 hours ago, gorann said:

Very nice Dave!

When you blended in Ha with red (and found it too red), did you use blend mode Lighten? That one only puts Ha into parts where it is brighter than the red channel signal.

Cheers

Göran

Thanks Goran... yes I did do it like that as per the method@ollypenrice taught me, it usually works really well but on this it either made no difference or turned all the dusty stuff red no matter how I adjusted it with curves and levels,   I guess being so bright the red signal is strong enough without it .. 

Dave

Edited January 23, 2020 by Laurin Dave

[gorann]

Just now, Laurin Dave said:

Thanks Goran... yes I did do it like that as per the method Sir @ollypenrice of Etoile Saint Cyrice taught me, it usualyy works really well but on this it either made no difference or turned all the dusty stuff red no matter how I adjusted it with curves and levels,   I guess being so bright the red signal is strong enough without it .. 

Dave

Or maybe the dusty stuff really should be red in a HaRGB version since you have a lot of Ha signal there? But then your HaRGB image would look rather different from the "standard" RGB version of M42. If you do not put Ha into the red channel, but only use it as lum then it will make white dust rather than red dust since there is no strong red signal there to be picked up by the lum. So, in a HaRGB version of it, it probably should be red dust. Maybe make two versions of it, a standard RGB and a HaRGB? Would be interesting to see.

And yes, the blend mode Lighten was something I also picked up from Olly, here on SGL.

[Laurin Dave]

3 minutes ago, gorann said:

Or maybe the dusty stuff really should be red in a HaRGB version since you have a lot of Ha signal there? But then your HaRGB image would look rather different from the "standard" RGB version of M42. If you do not put Ha into the red channel, but only use it as lum then it will make white dust rather than red dust since there is no strong red signal there to be picked up by the lum. So, in a HaRGB version of it, it probably should be red dust. Maybe make two versions of it, a standard RGB and a HaRGB? Would be interesting to see.

And yes, the blend mode Lighten was something I also picked up from Olly, here on SGL.

Thanks Goran ... I'll give it a go at some point....

Dave