Orion nebula best attempt!

[Lucas Barclay]

Recently I took this image of the Orion nebula and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! The image is false coloured since I use a monochrome camera (ASI178mm) but I think it still looks pretty good! I'd be happy to hear your opinions and any improvements you would recommend!

[Varavall]

9 minutes ago, Lucas Barclay said:

Recently I took this image of the Orion nebula and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! The image is false coloured since I use a monochrome camera (ASI178mm) but I think it still looks pretty good! I'd be happy to hear your opinions and any improvements you would recommend!

Hi

What equipment did you use and exposure times, etc.? Then comments can be made more specifically.

[Lucas Barclay]

I took 60 20 second exposures in red, green and blue totaling to 180 20 second exposures. Here is a list of the equipment I used!

Camera - ASI178mm

Telescope - William optics ZN73

Mount - Nexstar 5SE alt-az mount

Filters - RGB

Processed in astro pixel processor!

[Varavall]

9 minutes ago, Lucas Barclay said:

I took 60 20 second exposures in red, green and blue totaling to 180 20 second exposures. Here is a list of the equipment I used!

Camera - ASI178mm

Telescope - William optics ZN73

Mount - Nexstar 5SE alt-az mount

Filters - RGB

Processed in astro pixel processor!

Not at all bad for starters and with an alt-az mount. I would try and get some short exposure shots so the centre and trapezium are not blown out; maybe 10 seconds or even shorter. Experiment! M42 is a challenging target because of the differing light intensities. I have been working on it for 6 months (well not fully as lots of inclement weather), and bit by bit things improve, however I still have much to learn about my rig and processing. My photo is a NB image and I took 10 second images to get the centre. I process in ASTAP and GIMP.

[Varavall]

36 minutes ago, Lucas Barclay said:

I took 60 20 second exposures in red, green and blue totaling to 180 20 second exposures. Here is a list of the equipment I used!

Camera - ASI178mm

Telescope - William optics ZN73

Mount - Nexstar 5SE alt-az mount

Filters - RGB

Processed in astro pixel processor!

PS Take a look here for calculating optimum exposure times with an Alt-Az mount https://telescopemount.org/short-exposure-alt-az-astrophotography-learn-how-to-get-great-results/

[The Lazy Astronomer]

On 19/02/2022 at 13:05, Lucas Barclay said:

Recently I took this image of the Orion nebula and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! The image is false coloured since I use a monochrome camera (ASI178mm) but I think it still looks pretty good! I'd be happy to hear your opinions and any improvements you would recommend!

Good effort - as above, I'd say blend in some shorter exposures for the core. There may also be a tad too much noise brought forward - consider less aggressive stretching or some noise reduction.

FYI - RGB imaging through a mono sensor is true colour (in terms of data capture anyway), not false colour.