M42 Orion in H-alpha

[Padraic M]

My Baader 3.5nm Ha filter arrived last week, so I took the first available opportunity to use it, on the first available target. Also very glad to see Orion clearing the trees for the first time this year! Lovely to see him back.

Actually woke up at 4am last Sunday morning to clear skies, so I set up and took 1.5 hours of lights before dawn broke. I'm like a kid in a sweetshop with the amount of detail I can get with that filter in my Bortle 8 skies, even though I know there's more that can be done in processing. There's a lot of nebulosity up there!

All feedback gratefully received!

SW Esprit 80 on a HEQ5 pro
ASI1600MM Pro cooled to -20c
17*300s Ha (one frame took a wobble when I kicked the tripod)
12*30s Ha to get some unsaturated core  

Full sets of darks, flats and dark flats applied.
Stacked in DSS and processed in Gimp.

Edited October 21, 2020 by Padraic M

[vineyard]

The wisps of the nebulosity are so rich. 👍🏾

[Chefgage]

Excellent image. I am looking forward to using my Ha filter a lot more in the coming months.

[Padraic M]

Thanks @Chefgage and @vineyard. I think I should be able to bring out more detail with expanded contrast, but I'm fighting with noise grain at this stage. I've tried bringing it through Noise Ninja but first results actually made it worse so it will need more work.

[ollypenrice]

Fabulous. The holding down of the stars makes such a difference.

Olly

[ebdons]

WOW! that's a great image as the stars are not overexposed, and the trapezium shows up as it should. well done!

[Padraic M]

1 hour ago, ollypenrice said:

Fabulous. The holding down of the stars makes such a difference.

Thanks @ollypenriceit really does - I didn't need to do anything to them, the 3.5nm does the trick. I'm still playing with Startools but haven't managed to integrate it into the workflow yet.

54 minutes ago, ebdons said:

the trapezium shows up as it should. well done!

@ebdonssome slight artificial manipulation here! Blended some 30-sec exposures into the core area and highlighted the trapezium and the Theta Orionis stars slightly. It's great to be able to reference so many other photos of this area on the forums to understand what's important, and in this nebula definitely the Trapezium has to show through. It is phenomenally bright.

[david_taurus83]

Where did you get the filter?! I thought those Baader 3.5s were like hens teeth!

Nice image BTW. I do like mono Ha as well

[Padraic M]

@david_taurus83 Teleskop-Express had them in Germany. I've also ordered a new set of Baader LRGB filters from them to replace the cheap Celestron set I currently have. I'm going to leave the OIII and SII ones for the moment! Enough toys for now.

[Richie092]

I love a mono image and rarely see a B/W Orion. It’s lovely

 

I’m looking forward to it clearing the houses so I can have a go. 

[callisto]

Lovely image there 👍

I've got a set of N/B Filters winging their way to me as we speak, can't wait to use them

[Padraic M]

I did some research on the multiple-star systems in M42, using the Washington Double Star Catalog (WDSC). Apart from the obvious Trapezium and Theta 1 & 2 Orionis, there's a specific little blob of nebulosity around Iota Orionis due south of the Trapezium that contains four systems, three of which can be split with my equipment. I've annotated them in an enlarged section of the M42 Ha image (also available here https://astrob.in/uc0bos/0/).