M42 - my first astrophoto ever!!

[RugbyRene]

Hi all,

Yes I know it's another M42 picture but I'm pretty proud of this one. This is my first ever image. This was taken from my bortle 6 front yard with no filters.

Details:
Telescope - SW Esprit 100
Primary camera - ZWO ASI294
Guide camera - ZWO ASI120mm mini
Mount - SW AZEQ6
Acquisition/guiding software - KStars/EKOS
Light - 19 x 300sec - total integration 1.6 hrs
Darks - 50
Bias - 50
Flats - 50
Stacking - DSS
Post-processing - Startools 1.5

Please feel free to comment. I can already see things to improve (blown out core, bloated stars, noise). I know I still have a lot to learn but I'm encouraged by what I managed to get.

Rene

[leon]

Hell of a good image for a first attempt, as you said a bit blown out but what the heck it can only get better from here, ;) well done.:thumbsup:

Leon :thumbsup:

[RugbyRene]

Thanks Leon. Yeah there's only so much you can do in post.

Rene

[casstony]

Very nice Rene. With such a bright nebula you could experiment with different length exposures to see what works best for your gear. Sometimes shorter exposures work well on the bright stuff.

[RugbyRene]

Thanks. I was experimenting with the exposure length. Wanted to see how good my guiding was & how much detail i could pull in. Turns out, pretty good & quite a bit. Next time I'll do shorter exposures so the core doesn't blow out. I'll also use a filters which might help the star bloat.

Rene

[casstony]

A uv/ir filter or broadband light pollution filter should make a big difference to the stars. An L-Enhance will make stars smaller again but result in different colours to the nebula.

[RyanJones]

Hi Rene,

Great first effort. I won’t critique as you obviously recognise your areas of improvement. Your stars are round and you’ve collected some nice clean data so well done. Shorter exposures or lower gain will help control the blown out areas. The key is to make sure you aren’t highlight clipping in your subs. Once combined, if you haven’t clipped the highlights then you can selectively tone down the bright areas. Once clipped, as you said, there’s only so much you can do in post.

[Startrek]

Well done !!
Nice first effort
Enjoy Startools it takes time to find your feet with it but a very intuitive and powerful post processing tool for all levels of experience ,conditions and data quality

Cheers

[Ukastronomer]

100% better than anything I can do

[Outcast]

Great first shot mate, onwards & upwards from here...

I quoted the section above as I'm curious, are you perchance using an RPi with Stellarmate or similar loaded to pull your rig together & run from Kstars & Ekos?

Cheers

[Mike92]

Very nice!

[RugbyRene]

Hi,

In fact I am using a RPI 3+ atm with the latest Stellarmate loaded. I run KStars from a Windows 10 laptop and have the Ekos service running on the RPI remotely (when I say remotely I mean from my front-yard.)

I'll be making the transition to RPI4 once some bugs are ironed out (such as the ASI120mm mini guide camera not working).

I love KStars/Ekos. It' such a powerful tool and is a complete planetarium/image acquisition software package. And it's free!!

Rene

[RugbyRene]

Thanks.

Yes, StarTools is intuitive but like anything new will take a while to learn. I chose it as I wasn't comfortable paying upwards of $200 for Pixinsight or AstroPixelProcessor, or paying a subscription for Photoshop.

Rene

[LostInSp_ce]

Great first M42 as you've noted your guiding is perfect as is the level of detail you've managed to pull out. Well done!

[ChrisV]

Excellent first shot. M42 is difficult!

[Outcast]

Hey Rene,

I've sent you a PM about Stellarmate, etc.. rather than tie up your thread.

Cheers

[truss]

Top effort Rene, I'm miles off from even coming close to your effort.

[RugbyRene]

Here's a reprocess of the same image using the original data. This time through Pixinsight. I think it is a better result.

What do you all think?

Rene

[casstony]

Looks good Rene, much more natural looking than the first post.

[raymo]

Much better Rene, but regarding the blown out issue, shorter subs won't help,
as to quieten down the core so that the Trapezium becomes visible would
require subs so short[15-20secs] that most of the rest of the nebula would not register. You need to take a mix of subs of the above mentioned duration
and your usual ones, and use layers, masking etc to quieten down the core
without losing the rest of the nebulosity.
raymo

[ChrisV]

Very nice Rene!

[Ukastronomer]

well it is 100% better than I can do :)


.