M42 again 😀

[david_taurus83]

It never gets old, does it?!

Been a couple of years since I last took aim here. Last time it was with my Canon 6D, IDAS D2 filter, Altair 70EDQR and AZ-GTi mount. I was impressed with the amount of signal the 6D could produce. Result was this after about 5 hours:

 

This time round it was shot with the ASI2600MC, Redcat 51 and AM5 mount. No filter this time. I shot a series of shorter subs for this as well, 5s, 15s, 30s with the intention of making a HDR frame for Orions core. Turned out I didn't need them as the wells on the 2600 are that good that 60s subs didn't blow out the core. As I said, no filter so stars are a bit bigger but no halos or reflections either. Lots more signal, about 4.5 hours worth of 60s subs.

 

[teoria_del_big_bang]

29 minutes ago, david_taurus83 said:

It never gets old, does it?!

No, always great to see these targets. I wish I could say the same for some of my joints which certainly are not ageless 🤣

Bothe great images, I do prefer the newer one though and I quite like the larger stars, I guess if you didn't then you would have reduced them with one of many ways to do so.

Did you use the original image to frame the new image as they are exactly the same, or are they both heavily cropped to achieve the same FOV  ?

Steve

[kirkster501]

I always love the good old favourites.  I love the dust you have in the background and the colours.  Top drawer mate.  Personally I prefer the top one.

[david_taurus83]

1 hour ago, teoria_del_big_bang said:

No, always great to see these targets. I wish I could say the same for some of my joints which certainly are not ageless 🤣

Bothe great images, I do prefer the newer one though and I quite like the larger stars, I guess if you didn't then you would have reduced them with one of many ways to do so.

Did you use the original image to frame the new image as they are exactly the same, or are they both heavily cropped to achieve the same FOV  ?

Steve

Yes, I don't mind bright stars being big as long as they have that nice outward glow and not those filter induced halos!

No, just used the framing tool in ASIAir. I think I bought the Air at the right evolutionary stage as its as good as anything PC based now.

[david_taurus83]

1 hour ago, kirkster501 said:

I always love the good old favourites.  I love the dust you have in the background and the colours.  Top drawer mate.  Personally I prefer the top one.

Thank you! The top one was the first and only image I managed to process in Photoshop. It took me a few days to get it right. That's one of the reasons processing always seemed daunting as I could go round in circles for ages. Now about an hour in Pixinsight is enough. I have come to believe the less steps in processing, the better and certainly more enjoyable now.

The top one, I always felt was a bit too red. Even the latest version, I had to pull back the red channel slider a little at the very end as the dust was too red.

[kirkster501]

Less is more in processing is my personal belief, as in most things in life. But then again, I'm no expert either.  I just think it is possible to overdo the processing and the person becomes blind to it; this is especially so with noise reduction.  I have done this many times and still do and I have to catch myself and go back to the beginning.

I prefer the slight red of the top one.  Appeals to me.

The one and only change I would have made is to rotate the image 90 degrees clockwise to "match" its real orientation on the sky.  I don't bother with this with galaxy clusters etc but with very well known targets such as this, M31 etc, I like to frame it as it would be on a sky map.  That's just my opinion though.