M42 - finally

[Viktiste]

M42 is often the first one people image. Finally some clear skies, so I had my first go at it. Decided to go for short subs, so did 300 x 10sec subs each of R,G,B. 15 flats, 15 darks. Also took 80 x 20s Ha but have not processed those yet.

Stacking this in Pixinsight: Initial Lights folder size was 30GB. Processing created Registered folder 60GB and  Calibrated folder 60GB. It took about 8 hours to stack. Then add some intermediate processing data, and the entire size for this is a massive 154GB!

And the total exposure time is only 50 minutes for each R,G,B channel. Theoretically I should probably have used even shorter exposures. It just does not add up.

 

Anyway, here is the result. Hard to remove LP gradients as usual.

 

[theropod]

Looks great to me, and I have a look at M42 every time I drag the gear out.

[teoria_del_big_bang]

That is a super image 👍

Steve

[Astro-Bird]

Nice work!!! Very nice photo of M42

[rickwayne]

I'm liking everything I see there. Great details, wonderful color in the emission portions, really good control of the tonal range. Nice!