Orion and Running Man Nebula

AstroTom (Tom) · #1 12-01-2015, 01:59 PM

Hi Everyone,

I thought I would post this photo of the Orion Nebula that I took with my new Skywatcher ED120 Black Diamond telescope. I have still to sort out the core and I need another night to get some more subs for this but since taking the photo we have hardly had any clear nights here in Brisbane so I'm having to wait.

Anyway the photo is around an hour of exposure with a mixture of 90s and 30s subs at ISO 2000. I did take some 15 sec subs at ISO 400 for the core but I didn't catch enough of the core to add this into the photo. I may need to do some 20 or 30s subs at IS0 400 for the core instead. The camera was a Canon 6D with a Astronomik light pollution filter added. The mount was an AZEQ6.

I'm pretty happy with this so far but will be more happier once I get the core sorted out.

Regards,

Tom

traveller (Bo) · #2 12-01-2015, 02:47 PM

Great photo Tom,
If you have photoshop or similar, you can try using layer masks to minimise the core being blown out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-PC4Sq0Zho
Bo

BigJohn · #3 12-01-2015, 04:18 PM

Beautiful well done..

chiaroscuro (Luke) · #4 12-01-2015, 09:30 PM

Thats really nice. It looks like you could fall into it! Did you use and auto guider for this?
Im interested because I have the same telescope on a HEQ5Pro mount without a guider, and I'm a little hesitant to go above 120sec subs, but you've given me hope.
Keep 'em coming.

AstroTom (Tom) · #5 12-01-2015, 10:51 PM

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for your comments and for the link to sorting out the core Bo. I have had a play around and used some of my 15s subs to combine in with my other image. I now get the photo below which I'm pretty happy with. I have now managed to get the trapezium in as well.

I didn't autoguide for this. I just took around 40 minutes of 90 sec subs and around 15 mins of 30 sec subs and now combined them with around 4 mins of 15 sec subs. The 15 sec subs were at ISO 400 and the others at ISO 2000. The 6D camera is not to bad on noise at the higher ISO's so I can get away with higher. Normally I use ISO 800 or 1600 with my modified 600D camera.

I think 120s subs with the AZEQ6 is about the limit before guiding. I was doing 120s subs the other night and was noticing stars starting to elongate when you zoomed very far into the image.

Anyway I'm going to start thinking of what to image next. I need to get my autoguider going and learn to use that now

Tom

raymo · #6 12-01-2015, 11:37 PM

Great job.
raymo

ralph1 · #7 13-01-2015, 12:08 AM

I prefer the original image with the burnt out core.(runs to hide in underground bunker)
The running man nebula is particularly good though.

LightningNZ (Cam) · #8 13-01-2015, 08:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ralph1

I prefer the original image with the burnt out core.(runs to hide in underground bunker)
The running man nebula is particularly good though.

I do too actually. You did the blend well but you've still suppressed the brightest part so much that it looks a bit flat. It's almost impossible not to make it look flat though so really you've done extremely well.

AstroTom (Tom) · #9 13-01-2015, 09:39 PM

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for the comments. Yea it was a bit tough going with sorting out the core. I think the main issue was that the subs I took for the core needed to be a little longer than 15s. But this is the first time I have had to learn masking in photo shop and had to combine two images together. So all in all I'm quite happy with this.

Tom

AstroAdz (Adam) · #10 14-01-2015, 01:06 AM

A superb result given the bad conditions