just when you thought there were no more M42s this year!

[alocky]

I took this series of 6 images over the last new moon and have been wrestling with the processing and mosaicing ever since. Each frame has only got about 15 minutes through each filter. I tried to make the HDR more tasteful, but decided, to hell with it, and went for structural definition around the fish's mouth and trapezium.
Maybe next year I'll go a bit deeper and add some Ha to the luminance.
Astrobin high resolution here: (https://www.astrobin.com/334032/C/)
Mosaic done using PI's mosaic tool and used a combination of HDRmultiscale and the localhistogramequalisation tool to disrespect the light in the core.
Each of the 4 channels per panel were also an HDR combination of 60s and 10s subframe integrations.
cheers,
Andrew.

[JA]

Remarkable job Locky. Well Done :thumbsup:

Best
JA

[Octane]

That's a stunner, mate!

I have 45 minutes of data left to collect after almost 6 months of working on this region. This is inspiration for me. :)

H

[strongmanmike]

A rather nice looking M42/sword Andrew :thumbsup:

Mike

[Peter Ward]

Maybe respect the trap brightness a tad more :)

But delightful resolution and dynamic range. A very fine M42 :thumbsup:

[topheart]

I think it is magnificent Andrew!!
Cheers,
Tim

[multiweb]

Trap's a little flat as previously mentioned but the details and colors are really nice. :thumbsup:

[cometcatcher]

Beautiful!

[Atmos]

Apart from the trap, it’s a magnificent image Andrew :thumbsup:

[alocky]

Thanks!


At least with an FSQ you don't need to mes around with mosaics! Looking forward to seeing your result.


Thanks Mike - I thought I might try and get your electric blue out of the running man, since I'd already gone from science to art! But I didnae. :-)


Thanks Peter - in my defence, this is the level of compression needed to be able to see the bow wave around the star about 3 arc minutes SSE of the trap, as well as all the other stuff in the picture!


Thanks Tim


Thanks Marc - agree, but I'm invoking artistic license on this :)


Thanks Kevin


Thanks Colin, I'm leaving myself room to improve for next season.

[Octane]

It actually is a mosaic I've been working on, lol. Successfully finished capturing all data last night. Now, the mammoth task of assembling it. :O

H

[Ryderscope]

A very good M42 Andrew. We never get tired of looking at this area of the sky. I, like many here I am sure, we’re first drawn into astrophotography after seeing images of M42. Thanks for sharing.

[gregbradley]

That's an excellent M42 Andrew.

Greg.

[RickS]

Nice work, Andrew! An impressive result for 15 mins per panel.

[Gary_1965]

Lovely image.
The textures and depth are magnificent!

[Placidus]

So much to see! Tiny, perfect stars, and faultless mosaic stitching.

[alocky]

Thanks Mike and Trish, it took me 4 goes to get the mosaic presentable, and I can still see one seam :), but I have spent an awfully long time looking at it!


Thanks Gary


Thanks Rick this is one of those few objects that doesn't benefit from 40 hours!


Cheers, thanks Greg.


ME too - it was probably the first DSO I looked at nearly 40 years ago, and it still hasn't grown old!

[SimmoW]

Wow that is Good one Andrew, big effort compared to what I'm about to post!

[Paul Haese]

Nice Andrew, seamless mosaic. Great detail for sure but I reckon you could work the reds and oranges a little. I really like the detail at the core.

[alocky]

Thanks Paul, that's great feedback. As long as I don't have to re-assemble that mosaic I'm happy to tweak and fiddle and try ideas like that out :-).
cheers,
Andrew.

[Kunama]

Sensational image Andrew. Such a 3Dimensional 2D image.
I stared at M42 in amazement in a 32" scope on Thursday and seeing this is simply icing on the cake..... (my new desktop image.....)

[alocky]

Thanks Matt! M42 in a big scope is something you can stare at for hours without noticing the time go by!
Let me know if you want a higher res version - the highest quality jpg is 9Mb.
cheers,
Andrew.