Trapezium in Orion

[chiltonstar]

With a beautifully clear night yesterday after the rain had cleared, I had another try at imaging the Trapezium quartet in Orion using a 180 Mak, AS1224 colour camera, 125 ms frames and processing in Autostakkert and PS. I've stacked the best 30% of 500 frames. The seeing was variable, but mainly poor to average. Afterwards, I spent a happy hour revisiting many of the glorious Orion doubles until cloud set in.

I've inverted and labelled the frame for identification.

Chris

Edited December 20, 2020 by chiltonstar

[markse68]

interesting image as very often they appear like little triangles to me also- they seem to suffer from poor seeing a lot more than other stars 🤷‍♂️

Interesting too the colours of the e and f stars- is that real?

Mark

Edited December 20, 2020 by markse68

[chiltonstar]

4 hours ago, markse68 said:

interesting image as very often they appear like little triangles to me also- they seem to suffer from poor seeing a lot more than other stars 🤷‍♂️

Interesting too the colours of the e and f stars- is that real?

Mark

I suspect that the colours are an artefact caused by the faintness of E and F and the purple background of the nebula.

 Chris

[Sunshine]

Nicely taken, I recal first resolving e,f stars through my 150 Mak on a great night, was satisfying to see them.

imaging them as close as you have is a challenge.

[JOC]

You saw E and F - wow!

[robin_astro]

On 20/12/2020 at 11:53, markse68 said:

interesting image as very often they appear like little triangles to me also

Triangles can be a sign of pinched optics. I have a cheap 80mm f5 refractor which shows this beautifully if I tighten the objective lens retaining ring

Cheers

Robin

[markse68]

9 minutes ago, robin_astro said:

Triangles can be a sign of pinched optics. I have a cheap 80mm f5 refractor which shows this beautifully if I tighten the objective lens retaining ring

Cheers

Robin

Hi Robin- very true but mine’s a reflector and the mirror is free to move in it’s cell and it only ever seems to show the trapezium as triangles- but not always. It’s very strange. I think it must be an effect of viewing it too early when it’s too low to the horizon and poor seeing. 

Mark