M42 - The Orion Nebula

[fireballxl5]

The Great Orion Nebula using some poor data I captured on 29th Dec 2019 (hazy cloud, neighbours trees...) with some better quality subs from a couple of weeks later on 17th Jan. Conditions were much improved on the second night and I got 11x300s luminance subs to bring out some fainter details. I used the cracking HDRComposition process in PI with luminance stacks of 10s, 30s, 60s, 120s and 300s to protect the bright core around the Trapezium star cluster - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapezium_Cluster 

So this image comprises approx. 102 minutes of Lum with 16x60s each of RGB using my dual rig refractors at 1.7arc-sec/pixel.

CS, Andy

[Gina]

Cracking image! 

[dannybgoode]

Very nice - I do like that.  M42 is one of those targets - there are so many renditions of it and each one is just a bit different from the other depending on the tastes and skills of the imager.

[fireballxl5]

3 hours ago, Gina said:

Cracking image! 

Thanks @Gina😀

2 hours ago, dannybgoode said:

Very nice - I do like that.  M42 is one of those targets - there are so many renditions of it and each one is just a bit different from the other depending on the tastes and skills of the imager.

Thanks @dannybgoode I processed this to try and emphasise the reds and blues, whilst trying to avoid worsening the halos I had around the brighter stars in the blue channel. 

[Gina]

Can I have it as my desktop wallpaper, please?  Love the colours.

[MarsG76]

Great looking image, plenty of detail and great colors... the only critique I have is that perhaps the black levels are clipped at bit although it could be the monitor with which I'm looking at it. I find that the darkest black level 14-18 in photoshop looks ideal.

 

[fireballxl5]

8 hours ago, Gina said:

Can I have it as my desktop wallpaper, please?  Love the colours.

Hi @Gina, of course you can, I'll drop you a copy of the full-size JPG unless you want the 42MB TIFF?😊

[fireballxl5]

3 hours ago, MarsG76 said:

Great looking image, plenty of detail and great colors... the only critique I have is that perhaps the black levels are clipped at bit although it could be the monitor with which I'm looking at it. I find that the darkest black level 14-18 in photoshop looks ideal.

 

Thanks @MarsG76🙂 It could be the JPG (or your monitor?) In the TIFF, background levels fluctuate around 18-25 so this seems fine to myself.

[Anakin Skywalker]

awesome detail and very well done! i took an image of m42 through NASA's Micro observatory with exposure time 60 seconds with 3 filters (RED green and blue) which I combined into one full color  RGB img through the JS9-4L  astro image processing software https://waps.cfa.harvard.edu/eduportal/js9/software.php which is available on the website. The website allows you to request images acccording to your chosen settings and they e-mail you the images in a day or two in .FITS format. You then process them thru the software and create your final image. 

                                                                             

Micro observatory website - https://mo-www.cfa.harvard.edu/OWN/astrophoto/microobservatorychallenge.html#standoutentries

May the force be with you😀🔭

Edited March 14, 2020 by Anakin Skywalker

[ollypenrice]

Lots to like in the image. The HDR technique has preserved some perfectly discernible detail in the Trapezium but has allowed the colour to burn out to white. I don't know how to prevent that from happening in PI because I do my HDR blending in Photoshop. It must be possible, though.

Olly

[fireballxl5]

7 hours ago, Anakin Skywalker said:

awesome detail and very well done!

and also with you😀

40 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

Lots to like in the image.

Thanks Olly😀 I should stop there but a quick search for good detailed images on the web seems to indicate that these are mainly O or B-type stars and appear white on most that I've looked at closely.  I think here with mine, 60s RGB subs and the relatively low altitude of the target at 53deg N does not help. In fact, a quick play with the RGB stacks confirms that they are not blown but they are poor resolution, with the stars not well resolved and they appear as an off-white mass. It will indicate how poor the conditions generally were throughout this acquisition. See for yourself... 

[ollypenrice]

44 minutes ago, fireballxl5 said:

and also with you😀

Thanks Olly😀 I should stop there but a quick search for good detailed images on the web seems to indicate that these are mainly O or B-type stars and appear white on most that I've looked at closely.  I think here with mine, 60s RGB subs and the relatively low altitude of the target at 53deg N does not help. In fact, a quick play with the RGB stacks confirms that they are not blown but they are poor resolution, with the stars not well resolved and they appear as an off-white mass. It will indicate how poor the conditions generally were throughout this acquisition. See for yourself... 

It wasn't the star colour but the nebulosity colour which I felt had not been retained. When I blend short and long exposures on this target in Ps I have to increase, quite consderably, the colour saturation of the short subs which contain the nebula colour.

Olly

Edited March 14, 2020 by ollypenrice

[fireballxl5]

Sorry, clearly I thought that you were referring to the star colours 😊 

In PI I used the HDRcomposition process on just the Lum stacks, followed by using the output of this with the RGB image to create the LRGB. I could try bumping the colour saturation of the RGB before adding the Lum.

Thanks for the tip 👍

[Anakin Skywalker]

I took this image in a different camera (Nikon D3500) setting with exposure time 13 seconds with ISO 25600. I attached the camera to my Celestron Nexstar 6SE SCT and i used tracking. It came out really great and i was really happy that i managed to capture some greeat detail since i'm just startin to figure out the camera setting through a LOT of trial and error!😆. I processed the image through Registax 6 to further enhance detail. I think it came out good. It really helped that the air polution is really low and we have really clear skies here in Tasmania.

 

Telescope - Celestron Nexstar 6SE SCT           

 Camera - Nikon D3500 

Exposure time - 13 secs

ISO - 25600

Date - 22/03/20

Time - 20:32

May the force be with you.

[Anakin Skywalker]

got bored with quarantine so had a go at drawing the Orion Nebula on canvas with acrylic paint. Its not really accurate but its great anyways!😆🔭 stay safe everyone!

May the Force be with you.

Edited April 9, 2020 by Anakin Skywalker