Second attempt

[Nikodemuzz]

Yesterday I was able to have another go at imaging. The conditions were much better than during my first try, described here. The wind was quite strong, around 12 m/s, which I sought to mitigate by setting up behind a large sign at my "dark" site, Bortle 5. I think the gusts might have eaten some sharpness from the image, but overall I'm very happy with the result. I think I may have actually danced when I saw what was visible already on a high-ISO short exposure I took to verify composition and focus. 😃

I was still unable to get the Synguider working. I couldn't get it to focus on my finder, which I could swear was possible before... This time I got much better polar alignment, though. The image is a stack of 86x40s exposures, stacked in DSS and processed in Photoshop. My inexperience processing astrophotos shows, but the image is still far better than I had hoped to achieve at this stage. Camera was Fujifilm X-T3, and the scope William Optics SpaceCat 51.

I'm not sure about the gradient from left to right. Is it due to the dust cloud around M42, or is it just a gradient that shouldn't be there?

Edited February 25, 2020 by Nikodemuzz

[Nikodemuzz]

Oh, I forgot to mention that no calibration files of any kind were used, only light frames.

[discardedastro]

Definitely looks like a gradient to me, yes. But a really good image! Beautifully framed and tons of detail, very sharp and nice round stars. Lots of cloudy nebulosity visible. Incredible photo for a second attempt at imaging!

I took the liberty of throwing the image through PixInsight's DynamicBackgroundExtraction and it spits out this nice orange gradient which looks like textbook sodium light pollution to me.

Subtracted gets you this:

 

Edited February 25, 2020 by discardedastro

[Nikodemuzz]

Thanks discardedastro! Your adjustment made a ton of difference! It makes total sense, now that I think about it. The gradient is oriented from the ground up, Orion was already pretty low, and there was a few lights in that direction. I might have to take PixInsight's trial version for a spin. Their tools seem pretty powerful.

[toxic]

i would be well happy with that image well done indeed

[discardedastro]

11 hours ago, Nikodemuzz said:

Thanks discardedastro! Your adjustment made a ton of difference! It makes total sense, now that I think about it. The gradient is oriented from the ground up, Orion was already pretty low, and there was a few lights in that direction. I might have to take PixInsight's trial version for a spin. Their tools seem pretty powerful.

Not so much a learning curve as a cliff, but it made a world of difference to me vs StarTools/DSS/Photoshop to have specifically astro-focused tools across the entire processing workflow. I'd budget for a copy of "Inside PixInsight" as a requirement, though - it's the missing manual!

[RobH2020]

22 hours ago, Nikodemuzz said:

 

That's really cool, good work. 

What do you reckon the total exposure time was? I have no idea about astro photography - do tell me if that question doesn't make sense!

[Nikodemuzz]

16 hours ago, discardedastro said:

Not so much a learning curve as a cliff, but it made a world of difference to me vs StarTools/DSS/Photoshop to have specifically astro-focused tools across the entire processing workflow. I'd budget for a copy of "Inside PixInsight" as a requirement, though - it's the missing manual!

Thanks for the fair warning! 😃 Cliff, you say? I'll have to bring a safety harness in the form of a large mug of cocoa beer.

[Nikodemuzz]

15 hours ago, RobH2020 said:

That's really cool, good work. 

What do you reckon the total exposure time was? I have no idea about astro photography - do tell me if that question doesn't make sense!

Thanks Rob!

The total exposure time was about 57 minutes.

[Chris]

That's impressive for the exposure time, loads of signal there!

[jock1958]

Excellent image @Nikodemuzzand some lovely detail. As a purely visual observer it puts into perspective how dark and difficult to see the Horse Head nebula is compared to M42!

[Nikodemuzz]

I'm practicing with PixInsight, and I started by re-processing this image. There is quite a difference, don't you think? I can certainly see why people use PixInsight, although I must say I 'm quite far from understanding how a proper workflow should go and how the important tools function. However, I'm quite happy with what I accomplished as a first go, and honestly I am over the moon with this image in general, being so new to all of this.

In the PI image I seem to have had much better luck in controlling the noise and background, and bringing out structure and detail in the nebulae. On the other hand, I seem to have lost some of the faint HA signal in the process. Also the color balance is remarkably different, and the stars are a bit more bloated in the PI version. Somewhere in the middle would be the sweet spot, in my opinion.

[SimM]

Better or worse?