spearo
03-09-2006, 08:06 AM
Hello everyone.
Here's my first proper M42 since I started astrophotography a few months ago. M42 was the target that got me hooked onto astrophotography of DSOs when I first captured it with an S7000 fujipix on the C9.25 in April 06 and again in May with the 20Da. By then it was very low on the horizon and, quite frankly (no pun intended) I didnt have a clue what I was doing (it's only improved a wee bit but still...)
This one was taken in a race against time as the morning glow was about to hit the sky and was taken amid very severe winds that picked up so bad I wrote off a whole series of shorter exposures.
You'll note the dedication (Houghy-there's a hint in there for you! :] ).
The girlfriend knew I was desperate to start trying my hand at imaging M42 and knew that it would clear a big tree at about 4:30 AM (cuz i kept mentionning it). So she decided to cut short our trip down the coast so we could come back in time for me to set the gear up, stick it in "hibernate" mode, get a few hours of sleep and wake up at 3:00 AM to have a brief imaging session from 4 AM onwards.
Hence de dedication.
I'm pleased that it's progress for me. Despite the severe winds i managed to tweak my autoguiding which should be nice when its calm again. I've also been learning to take multiple light frames and calibrate later with a dark frame. You guys were right its a bit more work but definitely worth doing (reprocessing my Dumbbell and Helix same way too this morning).
Here you go 4x 271sec ISO 400 with 20Da on a C9.25 F6.3 on CG5 autoguided.
Hope you like
When calmer conditions prevail, I'll try ISO 200 and hopefully not burn out the core too much as I did on this one. I'll also re-do the drift align to get it better.
I include the first two shots I refered to from April and May.
cheers
frank
Here's my first proper M42 since I started astrophotography a few months ago. M42 was the target that got me hooked onto astrophotography of DSOs when I first captured it with an S7000 fujipix on the C9.25 in April 06 and again in May with the 20Da. By then it was very low on the horizon and, quite frankly (no pun intended) I didnt have a clue what I was doing (it's only improved a wee bit but still...)
This one was taken in a race against time as the morning glow was about to hit the sky and was taken amid very severe winds that picked up so bad I wrote off a whole series of shorter exposures.
You'll note the dedication (Houghy-there's a hint in there for you! :] ).
The girlfriend knew I was desperate to start trying my hand at imaging M42 and knew that it would clear a big tree at about 4:30 AM (cuz i kept mentionning it). So she decided to cut short our trip down the coast so we could come back in time for me to set the gear up, stick it in "hibernate" mode, get a few hours of sleep and wake up at 3:00 AM to have a brief imaging session from 4 AM onwards.
Hence de dedication.
I'm pleased that it's progress for me. Despite the severe winds i managed to tweak my autoguiding which should be nice when its calm again. I've also been learning to take multiple light frames and calibrate later with a dark frame. You guys were right its a bit more work but definitely worth doing (reprocessing my Dumbbell and Helix same way too this morning).
Here you go 4x 271sec ISO 400 with 20Da on a C9.25 F6.3 on CG5 autoguided.
Hope you like
When calmer conditions prevail, I'll try ISO 200 and hopefully not burn out the core too much as I did on this one. I'll also re-do the drift align to get it better.
I include the first two shots I refered to from April and May.
cheers
frank