M42

[Taff]

Hi' this year first capture of M42.50x20's frames, same with dark and bias.Mark

[Darth Takahashi]

Nice capture, yes its getting to that time of year when the jewels of the night sky start appearing again. Its still a bit early in the morning for me...

Neil

[steppenwolf]

That's an early one, Mark!

[Taff]

Thanks Neil' for your comment.Mark

[Taff]

Yes Steve' i was waiting with the scope till it came into view.Mark

[Deneb]

Not bad at all Taff, you got the running man as well.

[Taff]

Thanks Deneb' for your reply.Mark

[Les Tilly]

Very nice results Mark my first M42 did not look as good as yours now you need to do some 5 sec and 10 sec then do some layer masks to make a nice core area

Good Job

Les

[Taff]

Thanks Les' for your reply and information.Mark

[oceanheadted]

Spotted Orion out the bathroom window the other night when I was woken up by one of the kids. Much to early in the morning for me. Nice image Mark

[narrowbandpaul]

The black point looks too high....ie the background is perfect black, a dark grey ensures you dont clip data.

I reckon with a lower black point you would have a rather nice image there......

[minimalist]

Nice start Mark! Keep getting data on this one, you'll be surprised how much more faint stuff you can pull out.

Daniel

[jgs001]

Good start Mark, it's all uphill from here ....

[Tim]

Great start as mentioned

What camera were you using? at 20 subs I bet there is a load of info and data in there that you cant even see as yet. The black and white points look a little clipped, try going a little easier in the steps and use gentle curves to pull up the coloured areas. If you need any more help with it, send me a pm or something.

Good to see Orion making a showing on the boards now, a taste of things to come

[Taff]

Hi' Thanks alot for your kind reply and information to help me along.Mark

[Psychobilly]

Well done Mark...

Glad you have got the kit sorted ...

Peter...

[Coco]

Good start to the season...

Like its been mentioned before about clipping

Try this tutorial..

Astro Imaging Tutorial Learning to Use Photoshop Curves

Guy

[ollypenrice]

Getting some short exposures for the core is your next move. You can do it by layer masking but there is an esier way which I have just tried with great success on Luminance. I think it would also work for colour. You take your short exposures - I used 60 secs and 10 secs. In Ps you paste the 60sec short onto the long, in Layers set Blend Mode to Normal, Opacity 100%. Then using a very soft edged erasor, fairly large, you just wipe away all of the top short layer, closing in on the core carefully to leave just the bit you want. Then you adjust the opacity to get a really smooth transition. Flatten Image. (Ctrl E). And then you do same for your 10 sec.

An alternative to the soft edged erasor is this; paste short onto long and draw a marquee around the part of the short you want to retain over the burned out section in the layer below. Put a good feather onto the selection, select Inverse, and then use a big erasor to wipe over the whole image. Only the bit you excluded will be left.

This really worked a treat for me, better than Layer Masking, so far. However, more tests needed so no guarantees!

Olly

[Taff]

Thanks everyone for your reply and advice on taken captures.Mark

[goatshoes]

Gorgeous!!!