Polluted M42

[MickyWay]

I was planning to do some images of Mars, but the seeing and transparency were causing problems, so I switched to Orion.

OK, it’s nowhere near as good as Peter Shah’s superb image of M42 ‘A Late Orion’ posted recently , but it just shows what a superb camera the Canon is. No dark frames were subtracted and light pollution is shown in all it’s glory. The image was initially quite noisy, but I used Neat Image for the first time and I am pleased with how effective this add-on is ( It’s free to download, but some features are turned off).

Setup: Unguided, Celestron C8 SCT @ f10. Canon 1000D (unmodded), no filters. 10 x 20 second exposures @ ISO1600.

My next step will be to mod the 1000D (when the Baader filter finally arrives ), and try some guided, longer exposures.

[MidnightSun]

Nice one even with the LP...

[MickyWay]

Thanks Dave,

Regards,

[roundycat]

I wouldn't worry too much about a little bit of light pollution.

Dennis

[Psychobilly]

There are a couple of easy thinks to do to reduce the noise...

Take and include Bias (Offset) frames inthe stack - Takes these "dark" with the camera set to 1/4000s

In DSS after "Checking" the light frames and selecting "Stack Checked Pictures" click on "Stacking Paramaters" then on the "cosmetic" tab enable both the "Detect and Clean remain Hot/Cold Pixels" options try them with the default settings...

This should remove the "primary" color (RGB) Hot pixels as well as any dead ones...

Peter..

[MickyWay]

From now on Dennis I'll just send my pics to you for processing,

and then take all the credit. Brilliant.

Thanks to you Peter for pointing me in the right direction. I'll try what you have suggested,

Thanks to you both,

Regards,