De Mairan's nebula and the Trapezium

[wimvb]

After my main target for the night had set behind my observatory wall, and before the clouds moved in, I was able to capture 36 minutes of data on M43 and M42. I kept the single exposures short (30 s) at low gain, in order to preserve the Trapezium area in M42.

Processed in PixInsight.

To avoid ovestretching the central area, I combined three different stretches of the image with PixelMath. Then I boosted local contrast and colour saturation with MMT.

As always:

SW Explorer 190MN on a SW AZ-EQ6 mount

ZWO ASI294MM-PRO with Optolong 31 mm RGB filters

Red: 14 x 30s (7 mins), Green: 20 x 30 s (10 mins), Blue: 38 x 30 s (19 mins)

With a little more drama:

 

Edited November 7, 2021 by wimvb
stacking edge, upgraded image, typos

[Sunshine]

Wonderful image! 

[simmo39]

V nice!