SGL 2021 challenge 8 - All about Orion

[SteveNickolls]

This capture of M42 and M43 was taken over a number of evenings this January fighting local light pollution and  a waxing Moon. 1578 twenty six second light frames amounting to over eleven hours total exposure were combined In Deep Sky Stacker with master dark, flat and bias frames then processed in StarTools.

I used my RedCat 51 at 250mm focal length and ASI178MC astro-camera on an unguided iOptron GEM28 mount.

Cheers,

Steve

 

[Hughsie]

Sh2-261, Lower’s Nebula. This target faces a lot of competition from its more famous cousins located in the constellation Orion so is not a commonly photographed area of nebulosity.

Equipment Used

• William Optics Z103 refractor.
• ZWO ASI1600mm Pro Cooled Camera. Gain 139, Offset 30, Sensor Temperature -10c.
• SkyWatcher EQ6R-Pro mount.
• Sesto Senso motor focuser.
• ZWO EFW.
• Chroma 1.25” Ha, Sii, Oii, Red, Green & Blue filters.
• Pegasus Power Box.

Data

Acquired across 5th & 6th January 2022

• Ha - 36 frames x 300s
• Red - 12 frames x 300s
• Green - 12 frames x 300s
• Blue - 12 frames x 300s

Acquired across 19th & 20th January 2022

• Sii - 37 frames x 300s
• Oiii - 17 frames x 300s (clouds stop play)

Total integration time 10.5 hours.

Calibration frames - 25 flats and 25 flat darks for each channel. 50 dark frames used.

Software

• Sequence Generator Pro for session management.
• PHD2 for guiding.
• PixInsight used to squeeze the life out of the data.

Processing

• All frames were calibrated, aligned and stacked.
• Master lights were then cropped.
• DynamicBackgroundExtraction used to subtract gradients from each Master.
• Deconvolution applied to Ha master.
• TGVDenoise applied to linear masters.
• MultiScaleMedianTransform applied to each master to further reduce noise.
• RGB channels combined. MaskedStretch applied to produce Non-Linear Master. StartNet++ applied to remove RGB stars.

 

• Sii, Ha, Oii stretched to non-linear state using HistogramTransformation.
• PixelMath applied to combine SHO - Red Channel (Sii 80%, Ha 20%), Green Channel (Ha 100%), Blue Channel (Oiii 80%, Ha 20%).
• Further noise reduction applied using ACDNR.
• ColourMask script used to generate Red, Green, Blue and Yellow masks.
• ColourMask applied and R,G & B adjusted used CurvesTransformation.
• Contrast and Curves adjustments made.
• RGB Stars added to SHO using PixelMath.
• Star size reduction applied.
• Further curves adjustment.
• Sharpening and then a tweak to saturation.

 

 

 

Edited January 23, 2022 by Hughsie

[Gina]

Orion's Sword in Narrow Band

Captured on 20th January 2022 with my triple imaging rig and processed in PixInsight.  HSO.

Ha - 29x5m = 2h25m   ASI 294MM camera with Ha 3nm Astrodon filter and 200mm Asahi Super Takumar lens
OIII - 8x15m = 2h         ASI 1600MM-C camera with OIII 3nm Astrodon filter and 200mm Asahi Super Takumar lens
SII - 6x20m = 2h          ASI 1600MM-C camera with SII 3nm Astrodon filter and 200mm Asahi Super Takumar lens
Guider                          ASI 178MM camera and 55mm Asahi Super Takumar lens stopped down to f4

Capture systems Raspberry Pi 4B running Astroberry Server x 3.  Connected via Ethernet to tower computer running KStars/Ekos. 

Edited January 23, 2022 by Gina
Corrected errors

[blinky]

Heres my entry, 3 pane mosaic from the Horsehead to the Orion Nebula in Ha.  20X5 min subs for each pane and an additional 20x10s for the core of Orion.  Taken with ASI1600mono and ZWO Ha filter with a WO ZS73 and EQ6.

 

[harry page]

Hi

Here is my first every mosaic a 2 pane effort containing about 21hrs of data ( LRGB ) and taken over the last month or so

taken with a tak106ed @F5 and using a SX trius 56

As m42 is low down in the orange poo , I have to beat the data within a inch of its life - I may come back and try again , but my brain needs a rest

the full res image is about 8000 x 4000 pixels

Cheers

Harry

 

[emyliano2000]

During the last moonlit night, we were lucky to get some clear skies so I put the Antlia 3nm filter to the test on the Horsehead nebula and the companions in the Alnitak region.

I managed to shoot 73x300sec.

I'm really happy with this filter, can't wait to try out the other ones too.

Emil

 

Edited January 24, 2022 by emyliano2000

[Mikeshuerto]

The Monkey Head Nebula in Orion  NGC 2174

L-extreme plus a 14 inch mirror proves to be a great combo for capturing strong HII emitters. Taken  on January 22nd as the clouds rolled in from the Mediterranean and the 80% moon was rising. Just 10 mins, and this monkey face filled the screen. Taylor made for my small FOV.  I used the linear stacked FITS file to process a tad in Startools. Didn't need very much. This is pretty close to what I saw in the Sharpcap livestack.

154 x 4 secs (10 mins)
14¨ GOTO SW Dobson, SW coma corrector
L extreme 1.25"filter
ZWO ASI 294 MCPRO -15C
Captured and stacked in Sharpcap 4 pro25 darks 25 flats
Processed in Startools

 

 

[The_Bluester]

Another image I have been working on for a few weeks. I was hoping to capture more data but time and weather are against me.

NGC1788, the Cosmic Bat or Foxface nebula, quite a pretty area with the HA floating around what is largely a reflection and dark nebula. There is a tiny bit of Oiii and Sii signal in the main reflection nebula area, but it is overwhelmed by the RGB.

Capture details:

• Scope, Carbon fibre tube 10"F4 Newtonian (Skywatcher main mirror but an enlarged secondary) with a Televeue Paracorr. 
• Mount, iOptron CEM70G (Using an off axis guider not the inbuilt guider in the mount)
• Camera, ZWO ASI2600MM Pro with Astronomik LRGB and 6nm HA filters.
• 61 X 600 second HA subs, 21 X 300 second Luminance and 16 each 300 second RGB.
• All capture using Voyager, integrated in Astro Pixel Processor and post in Photoshop CC.

[eshy76]

Hello! This is my entry of the Alnitak region: IC434, the Horsehead Nebula and the Flame Nebula. Taken over 4 nights in January 2022, the 4th, 5th, 13th and 14th.

Taken from my garden in Sutton, Greater London (Bortle 7) using the ZWO ASI2600MC Pro camera, Rainbow Astro RST-135 mount and William Optics FLT91 refractor. Captured using NINA and Voyager, stacked in APP and post-processed in PixInsight.

Total integration time of 9 hours 8 minutes, 137x120s using IDAS NBZ dual narrowband filter and RGB subs split between 235x30s and 157x60s.

 

[SuburbanMak]

Entering this backyard observing scene under category one. Taken on Jan 13th - a night of exceptional seeing in Winchester delivering a memorable tour of Orion’s doubles.  
(iPhone 12 long exposure mode + PS Expresss).

[kev100]

Managed to grab another night out last night and took a couple more shots of Orion, this being the best of the bunch I think . Just cropped a bit off the bottom to remove sky glow.

 

[Fegato]

Here's M78 alongside the North end of Barnard's loop, a framing I'd been planning for some weeks. After a frustrating Christmas and New Year period, I got lots of narrowband data earlier in the month as we got 4 clear nights on the trot here, but with an increasingly bright moon, there was no chance to get the broadband data that I really needed. After an attempt mostly spoiled by haze and high cloud a week ago, I finally got a better run at it on Thursday evening. 

So this is 102 x 30s with no filter, plus 80 x 60s with NBZ dual narrowband filter. I blended the Ha data from the latter in a limited way to enhance the red nebulosity of the loop.

RASA 11, CEM120, ASI2400MC Pro, processed in Pixinsight. Bortle 3 / 4.

[Swillis]

Some great images on here. 

Here's mine.  Orion, flame and horsehead nebulas taken on the 4th, 5th and 7th Jan (Bottle 5). About 3hrs of 30sec exposures (threw away 1hour) taken with a Canon 350d, 75-300mm lens @160mm on a star adventurer 2i. Stacked with flats and bias and processed in Siril. Had some strange vertical coloured banding, which was removed in Siril before stacking. 

[Snoani]

This is my first attempt at the Witches Head Nebula, taken on 27 January 2022 using a Canon 1300D, Sigma 70-300mm lens (at 135mm) and mounted on an HEQ5.  

 I had a limited window and was only able to capture 1 hour of data, so this was as much of the witch that I could tease out before ruining the image.

[Zummerzet_Leveller]

Here's my entry in the widefield landscape section.  Orion behind Ashton Windmill on Sedgemoor Ashton Windmill - Wikipedia.  Taken with an unmodified Canon 6D and the Samyang 24mm.  4 x 15s exposures pulled together in Sequator.  Editing in GIMP.

[Zummerzet_Leveller]

Here's my entry for the widefield section.  Taken with my modified Canon 6D and the Samyang 135mm Cine lens 1 stop'ish down on my Omegon LX3 star tracker.  34 x 45 second exposures with calibration frames.  Stacked in DSS and processed in Siril, GIMP and Topaz.

[AmritNZ]

On 12/01/2022 at 15:27, AmritNZ said:

ooh i have a couple entries for this region. nice and high in our skies right now in new zealand   captured in my b5 backyard and processed in PI

 

Orion/Running man

30mins Ha, 15mins OIII, 15mins SII

 

Horsehead / Flaming sword

6hrs RGB, 6hrs Ha

 

Managed to grab more data on orion before the season is up. This is an HaRGB image from my B5 backyard. Surprisingly decent amount of detail given the short RGB integration time.

1hr10mins in each colour channel, 6hrs 18mins Ha, 1hr Sii and 1Hr Oiii. reds boosted by Ha and slightly by Sii, Blues boosted by Oiii and synthetic luminance was created from RGB. 

 

[AstroNebulee]

 IC434 from North Cornwall. Taken with my sw 72ed AzGti eq mode zwo asi 294mc pro asiair pro. Also using a svbony 2 inch ir uv cut filter. 4 hours worth of data at 180sec exposures 120 gain and - 10 degree's over 3 nights. Guided with zwo 30mm guidescope and zwo asi120mc-s. Calibrated with darks, flats and dark flats. 

Stacked in deep sky stacker 

Processed in Startools, photoshop and topaz denoise. 

Pleased with this now and enough data in there to see. Great to see a mount not designed for astrophotography doing some actual astrophotography and baffoonary in processsing by me. 

 

Edited January 31, 2022 by AstroNebulee

[Varavall]

Hi folks

Here is the first of my attempts 6 months in from starting mono ( the weather in sunny Spain is not always clear skies!), but the dreadful viewing has given me time to see what NINA, ASTAP and GIMP can do, but I still have a long journey ahead and at my age this beats sudoku to stave off the alzheimer's or so I hope 🤪

Equipment: Skywatcher 200pds, Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro Rowan modded, QHY5L-II-C guide camera on 30mm Skywatcher finder,  ZWO ASI1600MM-Cool, ZWO EFF with Astrodon LRGB 1.25", Astrodon Ha 5nm 1.23", Optolong O III and S II 6.5nm 1.25", ZWO EAF

Horsehead image taken 23 January, Gandesa, Tarragona, Spain

-15C, Gain 200, Bin 1x1

Ha 7x600s , R 9x60s, G 8x60s, B 8x60s 

Software: NINA, ASTAP, GIMP

Edited January 30, 2022 by Varavall
Added location of photo

[Varavall]

Equipment: Skywatcher 200pds, Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro Rowan modded, QHY5L-II-C guide camera on 30mm Skywatcher finder,  ZWO ASI1600MM-Cool, ZWO EFF with Astrodon LRGB 1.25", Astrodon Ha 5nm 1.25", Optolong O III and S II 6.5nm 1.25", ZWO EAF

Great Orion Nebula many nights 4-28 January, Gandesa, Tarragona, Spain

-15C, Gain 200, Bin 1x1

Ha 11x60s 14x120s 8x300s, S II 11x180s 9x600s, O III 14x60s 13x120s

[Tangoringo]

A single 3min sub ( don’t ask ) taken by my ZWO533mcpro / WO Megrez 90. Processed in Pixinsight ( with Star xterminator ) and noise removed with TopazLabs de noise.

[Pitch Black Skies]

IC 434

Integration - 4 hr 25 min

Calibration - 20 flats, 20 dark flats, 20 darks

Equipment - HEQ5, ASI533MC-Pro & UV filter, 130P-DS, Astro Essentials 50mm Guidescope & ASI224MC

Software - DSS, Startools.

Location - Ireland

Time & Date - 22:00, 29/01/2022

Fuel - Guinness

Edited January 30, 2022 by Pitch Black Skies

[Freddie]

Trapezium A to I

Thought I would try something a bit different for this one, so had a go at resolving stars A to I in the Trapezium. They are all there but some harder to see than others!!!!!!!

Shot on 17th Dec with my CPC925 and ASI120mm and Baader RGB filters. I thought as I was using my planetary setup, I would try planetary capture/ processing techniques so captured an AVI with Firecapture and stacked 40 frames in AS!3 (after a bit of experimentation found that fewer fames and I couldn't pull out the nebula, more frames and I couldn't resolve the fainter stars due to poor seeing). I then combined R, G and B in PS and further processed the combined image.

 

[Laurin Dave]

The Horsehead (IC434) and Flame (NGC2024) plus reflection nebulae IC431, IC432, IC435 and NGC2023 in L_HaRGB  Four panel mosaic through Esprit150SX46 and Esprit100ASI1600mm, 3hrs lum, 2hrs each RGB and Ha per panel. Processed in Pixinsight and Photoshop. Mosaiced in Pixinsight using Mosaic by Co-ordinates and Photometric Mosaic scripts. Captured between 1 Nov 2021 and 9 January 2022.

Dave

[Grifflin]

Hi Everyone

48 x 180s lights (so nearly 2.5 hours).  Equipment:  SW 80 ED, ZWO 294MC Pro, L-Extreme.  Image capture using NINA and processed in PI.

Neil