Very First Ever DSO.....Orion Nebula

[smerral]

Nothing spectacular, but since it's my VERY first DSO I'm excited enough to post!

I didn't intend to go for it originally - I was after some moonshots with the Mak 127, but Orion was there tempting me. Not ideal conditions with a bright moon and too little FOV with the Mak. This is 20 stacked frames at 10 sec exposure with a modded spc900nc webcam. Next time I intend to try with the f5 refractor for a better FOV. At least the heart of the nebula is visible.

[Neilius]

I have yet to venture into this area of astronomy, so I can't really comment, except that it looks familiar - i.e Ive seen those objects through my scope!

Good work!

[smerral]

Thanks a lot Neilius - seeing the image appear on a laptop screen is something like seeing Saturn for the first time. I have been using a webcam for a while but only for the moon and planets. Really it's just a matter of being pleased to capture anything deep sky.

[MikeD]

Nice one, the first of many i hope.

The colour could do with a little tweak to knock down the blue.

Mike.

[ollypenrice]

Four clean stars in the Trapezium. Not easy to achieve with a long stills camera...

Nice one.

Olly

[smerral]

Point taken, Yfronto - did some tweaking:

[MikeD]

[MartinB]

As Olly says, you've picked up the 4 principal trapezium stars and also some surrounding nebulosity. These stars are often lost in long exposure images designed to capture the dimmer outer nebulosity so this pic has to go down as a cracking 1st DSO. At the top of the deep sky board is a thread for you to post your 1st DSO. Make sure you put it in there. It is interesting to see how we are all progressing.

Well done and looking forward to seeing some more

[smerral]

Thanks Martin - I've posted it in that thread. Yes, I'm sure there will be more!

[smerral]

Well this is about as far as I can process this - must admit I'm dead chuffed with it though!