M42 - First Effort

[Sarek]

I hadn't intended to image M42 when I was setting up last night as it's inconveniently located in relation to my house but as I started early in the evening I had a 45 minute window to give it a go. I went with 180s exposures as I thought it might get even more blown out with longer ones?

I used my HEQ5 Pro, Starfield 102, Asi 533MC Pro and guided with Asi 120mm mini (quite stable at around 0.8 -1.0). Processed it in PI mainly using WBPP, BlurX and Noise X (the latter was first time for me and perhaps over egged). 

As a PI novice I found this a hard target to process satisfactorily. I plan to have a go using GHS and have a few tutorials lined up. Maybe teach myself masking as well?

Any advice gratefully received

 

[WolfieGlos]

Nice image Sarek, nice a sharp. 

Not sure on the 180s, was that using a narrowband filter? I did it with 10s exposures back in November (with a full moon) in broadband, and that stopped the core from blowing out. That was gain 252 using a 585mc though. 

I don’t have PI, but you can use PS or Gimp and use layers and masks to apply a smaller stretch to the core and then blend it in.

Im impressed with your guiding. I’ve put it down to the cold, but with the same mount and scope, I’ve been guiding quite wildly between 1.1” up to 2”, but generally around 1.6” - both pre and post meridian flip. I’ve recalibrated, checked balance, cable snags and nothing is wrong; and the same setup, with no changes, last week was down between 0.8” - 1”. 

[MKHACHFE]

Excellent. Especially considering it's your first attempt. Well done mate 

[Sarek]

12 hours ago, WolfieGlos said:

Nice image Sarek, nice a sharp. 

Not sure on the 180s, was that using a narrowband filter? I did it with 10s exposures back in November (with a full moon) in broadband, and that stopped the core from blowing out. That was gain 252 using a 585mc though. 

I don’t have PI, but you can use PS or Gimp and use layers and masks to apply a smaller stretch to the core and then blend it in.

Im impressed with your guiding. I’ve put it down to the cold, but with the same mount and scope, I’ve been guiding quite wildly between 1.1” up to 2”, but generally around 1.6” - both pre and post meridian flip. I’ve recalibrated, checked balance, cable snags and nothing is wrong; and the same setup, with no changes, last week was down between 0.8” - 1”. 

Thanks Chris. I should have done more research on how to image this target. I was only using an IR cut filter this time. I'll have another go with shorter exposures and with the L eXtreme .

Interested to see the gain you used there - I normally stick to 101 but it makes sense to up it with shorter exposures I guess?

Guiding accuracy is a bit of a mystery to me. Last night it almost never went below 1 and like you seemed to hover around 1.5 - 2.2.  I've also rebalanced and made sure I've no cable snags. Can only think its related to atmospheric conditions?

Now we have some cloudy nights ahead I'll have time to go back to processing school!

Vaughan

 

Edited January 19 by Sarek
Addition

[Fegato]

Nice one!  The most often used method with M42 on PI is to use HDR processing. In very simple terms, as well as your main stack, you take a set of short exposures as well. Both sets are pre-processed / integrated separately, and combined using HDRComposition. Then later on in post-processing, after main stretching, you use HDRMultiscaleTransform to bring out the detail in the saturated core.

For the short exposures - run some test exposures to make sure that you can see all the stars (particularly the trapezium) right in the core. For the longer ones, you'll probably see the core a bit blown out, but that's fine. For me with a very fast RASA, it was 20s (long) and 2s (short)!  If you're at F/7, maybe 180s and 20s might be roughly equivalent. With regard to filters - Orion is bright - you don't need a narrowband filter to take a great image, in fact for me, you lose a lot, particularly if you have darkish skies, as there's a lot of dust to be found. However, if your LP is really high I guess that's another matter.

You'll find tutorials on HDR processing in PI online. I tend to dislike youtube videos for learning, and learnt a lot of my basics through the tutorials on LightVortexAstronomy. These are a bit out of date now in places, and recently the website disappeared sadly. But there is a web archive currently available of the various pages, including one on HDR Processing - see the link in this thread: https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/905963-light-vortex-astronomycom/

[Sarek]

12 minutes ago, Fegato said:

Nice one!  The most often used method with M42 on PI is to use HDR processing. In very simple terms, as well as your main stack, you take a set of short exposures as well. Both sets are pre-processed / integrated separately, and combined using HDRComposition. Then later on in post-processing, after main stretching, you use HDRMultiscaleTransform to bring out the detail in the saturated core.

For the short exposures - run some test exposures to make sure that you can see all the stars (particularly the trapezium) right in the core. For the longer ones, you'll probably see the core a bit blown out, but that's fine. For me with a very fast RASA, it was 20s (long) and 2s (short)!  If you're at F/7, maybe 180s and 20s might be roughly equivalent. With regard to filters - Orion is bright - you don't need a narrowband filter to take a great image, in fact for me, you lose a lot, particularly if you have darkish skies, as there's a lot of dust to be found. However, if your LP is really high I guess that's another matter.

You'll find tutorials on HDR processing in PI online. I tend to dislike youtube videos for learning, and learnt a lot of my basics through the tutorials on LightVortexAstronomy. These are a bit out of date now in places, and recently the website disappeared sadly. But there is a web archive currently available of the various pages, including one on HDR Processing - see the link in this thread: https://www.cloudynights.com/topic/905963-light-vortex-astronomycom/

Thanks Robin - that is extremely helpful and much appreciated. I will explore these suggestions when we next get some clear skies.

[Albir phil]

Nice image ,yes it can be difficult to process, I found you can get all sorts of different colour ,red is usually the norm but I've come up with lots of different colours,it whatever you like best in my opinion, unless you are looking for a more,as they say true rendering 

[Sarek]

1 minute ago, Albir phil said:

Nice image ,yes it can be difficult to process, I found you can get all sorts of different colour ,red is usually the norm but I've come up with lots of different colours,it whatever you like best in my opinion, unless you are looking for a more,as they say true rendering 

Yes, you are right. This image was pretty close to what I wanted to achieve. I'm less concerned with true rendering but don't want to move too far away from it either

[Swoop1]

Nice image Sarek. I can't help with processing advice as I am trying to learn myself but, I would be chuffed if I produced that.

[Sarek]

3 hours ago, Swoop1 said:

Nice image Sarek. I can't help with processing advice as I am trying to learn myself but, I would be chuffed if I produced that.

Thank you. Processing is quite (sometimes very) challenging but like most things it hopefully improves with practice, not to mention some great advice from others further along in their journey.

[Sarek]

A more saturated version. Not sure I like it.

Its cloudy again here so will have to wait to better data for the core 

[Albir phil]

2 hours ago, Sarek said:

A more saturated version. Not sure I like it.

Its cloudy again here so will have to wait to better data for the core 

Detail is there,I like it 👍