First ever shot at M42 - Orion nebula (Bortal 8)

[astrobena]

Heres my first ever shot of the Orion Nebula in a Bortal 8 sky (as well as my first nebula). I stacked 52 light frames with Deep Sky Stacker (with dark, bias and flat frames) and then edited the stacked image with photoshop. The Core looks kind of blown out, so I'll need some shorter exposures to combine with this version.
I've also got a question linked to this: As i'm in a Bortal 8 location (on the edge of London, UK) i feel like i'm kind of limited by the exposure length befor the image just looks completly white/redisch from light pollution. For this photo i used 45 second Exposures but had to bump down the ISO to 200 to make it not look overexposed. In the end, does it really matter if the image looks overexposed due to light pollution because the light from the actuall DSO will still be there and can be filtered out through the power of editing or does this not really work?

*Any other comments or things i can/should change with the image would be greatly appreciated

Many Thanks to anyone taking their time to comment!

Edited January 26, 2021 by astrobena

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Very good first shot, especially from a Bortle 8 location, and certainly for such a relatively short exposure. What camera and scope did you use? Blowing out the core of M42 is a common problem, and combining the result with short exposures helps. I tend to combine loads of relatively short exposures anyway, and get decent results. The "correct" ISO value to use depends heavily on the camera. On my EOS 80D I think 200 is fine, but my EOS 550D works better around 800-1600, I find.

[astrobena]

Just now, michael.h.f.wilkinson said:

Very good first shot, especially from a Bortle 8 location, and certainly for such a relatively short exposure. What camera and scope did you use? Blowing out the core of M42 is a common problem, and combining the result with short exposures helps. I tend to combine loads of relatively short exposures anyway, and get decent results. The "correct" ISO value to use depends heavily on the camera. On my EOS 80D I think 200 is fine, but my EOS 550D works better around 800-1600, I find.

First of all, Thank you! I used the EOS 400d (which is now over 15 years old, and doesnt even have a live view) with the skywatcher evostar 72ed. When you say combine shorter exposures you mean stack the two different exposures seperatly and then merge them with photoshop right?

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Just now, astrobena said:

First of all, Thank you! I used the EOS 400d (which is now over 15 years old, and doesnt even have a live view) with the skywatcher evostar 72ed. When you say combine shorter exposures you mean stack the two different exposures seperatly and then merge them with photoshop right?

What I mean is I have at times stacked hundreds of 30s exposures (not so much on M42), and got good results. This is 3 hours worth (360 30s subs) of data, still a bit noisy, but I will return later to gather more.

For the blown out core of M42, I have combined different subs in Astro Pixel Processor, combined with some unsharp masking to reduce the dynamic range, and that worked pretty well.