M42 from central Guildford

[PortableAstronomer]

I know you've seen M42 a thousand times and could download much better ones elsewhere.

This was taken back in February from the staff car park at Guildford Royal Surrey County Hospital.

I've recorded a video on how it was done; using the techniques described on the cover CD with December 2008 Sky At Night magazine.

Capture : Sony A300 DSLR, 10s, 20s, 30s, 120s exposures

Processing:

Stacked with DeepSkyStacker

LP removed using PixInsight LE

Layer masking and merging with GIMP, as explained in the magazine

Video link coming up shortly....

[PortableAstronomer]

oops, I forgot to mention.

A friend and I got together to share our equipment (we still do, to spread costs).

The 190MN scope in the picture above was not used for M42, my mate purchased that later. Scope for M42 was an Skywatcher Equinox 80, guided using his 120mm scope (shown in the video).

Here's a frame before processing. Amazing what PixInsight LE can do.

Hope you enjoy the video....

Chris

[PortableAstronomer]

Here's the link to the video "behind the scenes", of the night we were doing the imaging, and a Windows desktop recording of myself doing the stacking & processing.

Hope it's interesting...

http://portableastronomer.blip.tv/file/2322230/

Chris

[Neil27]

Another great effort Chris.

If you guys can do this from a heavily light polluted car park then I can't wait to see what you can do from a decent site....bravo gents!

You've really caught the colour in Orion as well.

[Beyond_Vision]

Nicely done given your location and the conditions. Great to see how well free software has done the job.

Regards

Kevin

[michigander]

Very, very nice!

Dana