M42 Orion Nebula

[russ]

Had quite a good morning in the garden. Got up at 3.30am, moon had set and the sky was WOW! M45 and M31 overhead. Saturn on the Eastern horizon. And M42 around in the south. Looked absolutely fab!

Shame by the time i had setup the scopes the sky 40% cloudy. And by the time had snapped the first image it had worsened to 70% cloud cover. Then my youngest son woke. So i left the camera doing it's thing. Came back out to a glorious sky again. Which then clouded again within 5mins. Then cleared again and then clouded again......... :x

Anyhow while the ED100 and 300D imaged M42 i checked out Saturn in the Nexstar 4. Despite it's low position in the sky it still fantastic, never fails to impress. I just eye balled it with the Burgess/TMB 9mm eyepiece, impossible to come away from the eyepiece. In the end the cloud ended my look at Saturn. Roll on the winter and more of Saturn.

Onto M42. Looked very nice visually, although would have been nice to swing a large dob in it's direction. Decided to move quickly onto the imaging though with the cloud situation getting worse. Snapped 70 images in total, thought i was onto an absolute winner. 50 of those were while i was putting my son back to bed. Shame out of those 70 only 20 were cloud free. :x

So the image is the combination of:

15 x 1min @ 800ISO

5 x 1.5min @ 800ISO

Polar aignment was rough at best, no levelling and focus very quick indeed........not that i was rushing or anything!

Russ

[russ]

Slightly larger version

[CELESCOPE]

take my hat off to you Rus , that is a fine image mate , and one of the best i have seen so far with the DSLR, GREAT STUFFR RUS

[geppetto]

Rus, thats a real gem and well earned at that time in the morning

Lovely detail and colour

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

That's lovely, can't wait for it to turn up here.

Captain Chaos

[MartinB]

That is very very good Rus. I remember you took a superb image of M81/82 when you were rough with a cold and couldn't be bothered spending time fiddling with the set up. Obviously works for you! I can't remember seeing as wide a field as this containing so much detail in the nebula. The colour is amazing as well. Have you done any work processing the channels?

[Rob]

Very nice image indeed Russ. I was looking to dive out, but the clouds kept pouring over in pulses!... never mind.

Roll on the planets!!!!!!

Rob

[russ]

Yep i did have a play with the channel mixer to bring out the red. But it didn't require as much tweaking as I thought it might.

hmmm i just wonder what it would have been like with 70 images to stack?

thanks for the comments all

Russ

[Kain]

Really good Rus, I'm still in awe of M42, but I really wish I could have taken its picture..

I was windering what are the bright stars around the outside of the nebula? I notised them last night but forgot to ask on my thread.

Are they anything to do with the nebula? I was wondering if there more young stars that were formed by it?

Kain

[Astroman]

I was windering what are the bright stars around the outside of the nebula? I notised them last night but forgot to ask on my thread.

Are they anything to do with the nebula? I was wondering if there more young stars that were formed by it?

Kain

Most of them are foreground stars, Kain. Some of the smaller, fainter stars near the edges are in the neighborhood of the nebula, but still in front and didn't form with it. The Running Man is also much closer.

[Gordon G]

Nice image there Rus,

It's always nice to see Orion coming around again.

Cheers

Gordon

[daz]

Wow russ, an fantastic image.

Rushed effort indeed!!!!

[FLO]

Absolutely fantastic

If I ever get to match that image I will be chuffed

[FLO]

Remind me please, which mount are you using?

[Caz]

Thats a wonderful image Russ 8)

Caz

[russ]

Thanks Caz

Steve, i'm using the HEQ5 Skyscan.......wonderful piece of kit!

[Jamie]

Nice one Rus.

Remind me what scope/lens you were using?

Also did you have any filters in place?

[FLO]

Steve, i'm using the HEQ5 Skyscan.......wonderful piece of kit!

Proof is in the pudding 8)

(seriously tempted by one of those myself)

[russ]

Remind me what scope/lens you were using?

Also did you have any filters in place?

Hi Jamie,

Scope was a Skywatcher ED100

Filter was a Baader Neodymium

Regards

Russ

[OXO]

Nice image Russ,

To think Nicholas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc (1580-1637) pointed his scope Towards NGC 1976 one clear evening and observed what must of been strange to him clouds around the stars.. A magical sight for all is M42.

James