First M 42 stack

[Marvin Jenkins]

Hi everyone, thought I would post my first M 42 image. Strictly speaking I have been practicing taking single subs of M 42, 31, 81/82, to get an idea of exposure lengths and ISO rates.

The kit I have been using is an NEQ5 Pro with Synscan V5. The camera is an un-modded Nikon D3100. The OTA is flocked SW 150 PDS. I spent a great deal care polar aligning as I am unguided.

The rarest of events, a completely clear night, bang on the new moon and the seeing and clarity were perfect, I don’t think the stars were twinkling at all.

120 x 30 sec subs at ISO 800 and ten darks. I went through the subs before stacking and discarded four due to satellite trails. My first stack in DSS with the help of YouTube of course went perfectly.

Now I have had some help and much needed advice from #bukko about basic AP and he was right about exposure length. My first single sub efforts at 90 secs were burnt out.

Now as I know nothing about processing (downloaded GIMP yesterday) bukko’s offer of running it through PI was jumped at. He said he spent five minutes on it and the end result blew me away. The generosity did not end there, #bukko sent the file to his son who spent more time on it despite the fact that we have not even met each other, and the second picture is his hard work.

I am amazed ‘that’ data was captured by me in my back garden. Seems surreal somehow. It was pointed out to me that there is some coma in the corners as I did not have a coma corrector. This has now been rectified. I am very thankful of the help I have received and consider my self a very lucky guy. One day I hope to be at least competent at processing. Now to the work product.....

Marvin

[Atreta]

1 hour ago, Marvin Jenkins said:

120 x 30 sec subs at ISO 800 and ten darks. I went through the subs before stacking and discarded four due to satellite trails. My first stack in DSS with the help of YouTube of course went perfectly.

That's a great m42 image.  You can keep those images with satellite trails, if you stack with sigma or kappa signa methods(forgive me  I can't remember the exact name, I'm not on my pc right now) dss will remove them in the final image. 

[Bukko]

The next steps are to get the coma corrector installed and test the results.

Plus use a focus mask just to make sure. Then add some flats to compensate for vignetting.

Hopefully this will all go well, then look for another challenge.

And I am sure there will be some hardware upgrades to make you poor !!

Well done on the captures.

Gordon.

[jeffmar]

You made a really good images of M42. Beautiful work!

Edited March 1, 2020 by jeffmar