First attempt at M42

[codemonkey]

After my dog chewing through my power lead...and then my back-up power lead as well, I finally managed to align my scope well for the first time and have a crack at M42. I'm pretty stoked with the results, I have to say, even though I've seen much better results done by others.

Still trying to figure out how to get the most out of DSS. I know I captured a lot more data than I can see in the core for instance. Might have to keep playing with it to see if I can bring that data in.

This is about 19mins worth of exposures, varying in duration and ISO (ranging from 10s @ ISO 400 to 30s @ ISO 3200).

Nikon D5100
Skywatcher ED80
Celestron CG-5
DSS & Photoshop

[nebulosity.]

Gee whizz Lee! That is waaaay better than my first attempt :thumbsup:

Good work. When processing you might like to keep in mind that M42 is mostly red and pink with a bit of blue, It is difficult to get there colours right, what was you white balance set on?

Cheers
Jo :thumbsup:

[codemonkey]

Thanks Jo! :-)

I had my white balance set to "direct sunlight". Is that correct?

Honestly, I didn't really know what it should look like. After I posted this I was actually playing around with the channel mixer in PS and I'd thought that after pushing some of the blue channel into the red it looked a bit more balanced, but after having searched this morning, it still wouldn't be anywhere near as red as many of the other photos I've seen.

Also, when processing, if I have different exposures settings, should I stack those separately and then merge them (maybe HDR)? Or am I better off using DSS and stacking all of the different exposures simultaneously? Not sure if that's clear so I'll give an example. Let's say I have the following lights:

(a) 10 x 30s @ ISO 3200
(b) 5 x 10s @ ISO 400

Am I better off stacking (a) separate to (b) and merging the output using something else, or should I just stack them all in DSS?

[OICURMT]

I prefer these subtle shots versus some of the ones that gather so much data they blow everything out...

Very well done, worthy of a frame.

[codemonkey]

Thanks OICURMT :-)

I've reprocessed this now, tweaking the colours and getting a bit more detail in the core. Changes made:

(1) Use of adaptive averaging stacking algorithm
(2) Post processed in PS to:
(2.a) Swap a & b channels in LAB mode
(2.b) Channel mix in RGB to correct
(3) Reduced noise a touch in PS

Looks much closer to correct now, if I'm not mistaken.

[nebulosity.]

I used to image with a daylight white balance and have played around a fair bit with custom WB as well but have found (surprisingly) that AUTO does the best job of keeping the colours right, so would recommend you trying that next time.



I'm not real sure what is best here, if you can, probably blending (a) and (b) images would be the way to go. I generally just stack them all together.

Cheers
Jo

[codemonkey]

Thanks for your help, Jo :-)

I just modified my previous post while you were replying; the new image looks a lot better I think.

I opened up one of the single frames in PS and played around with the different presets; I found that "shady" looked the best. I batch processed them into tiffs before importing into DSS this time, but the output in DSS looked even more weird / blue, so I'm not sure what happened then.

I found that using the adaptive / HDR algorithms worked best, giving me more detail in the core than before. I tried processing each set separately and combining them in Photoshop using Photomerge HDR, but it didn't end well, so I gave up with that approach.

Thanks again, Jo! :-)

[codemonkey]

Ok, had yet another crack, trying to get more detail in the core. I realised that DSS was ignoring my frames that had the detail there because I'd set the star threshold thingy too aggressively.

[CapturingTheNight]

Great first attempt Lee. I find it best to treat the two sets of exposures separately in DSS and then merge then together in post processing. This is a great tutorial video that helped me greatly when I was first starting, and I am sure will help you too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBQQ_Gs6YHM&feature=youtu.be

[guggle]

Great work Lee! They got better with each attempt at processing!

[codemonkey]

Thanks Greg, much appreciate it!



Thanks Michael! :-)

[LightningNZ]

Really nice work there Lee. I've just picked up a D5100 and would be very happy with a result as good as this.
Cheers,
Cam

[rcheshire]

Looking great Lee.

[codemonkey]

Thanks Cam! :-) Good luck with your D5100.



Thanks Rowland :-)