My first ever deep sky object: M42

[Stephane]

Hi all,

Below is my first ever attempt of deep sky astrophotography.

I only have 25 minutes of integration so far as it took me hours to set up, and I don't yet trust myself to set up the equipment to work autonomously while I sleep. I didn't have time to do any calibration frames either. Hopefully in coming nights, I will add data and get some calibration frames.

Guiding, surprisingly, was fantastic given I just plugged in recommended parameters (from Martin) and obtained an total error of < 0.65 arc seconds.

May I just give a huge thanks to Martin who has given me much high quality advice.

Regards,
Stéphane

Telescope: BT200 f/5
Mount: EQ6-R
Filter: Optolong L-Extreme
Camera: Nikon D7000

30s x 50 = 25 min integration
No calibration frames
Pre-processed & processed using PixInsight (Trial version)

[Hans Tucker]

Wow ... nice first effort Stephane :thumbsup:

[Startrek]

Stephane,
Well done for your first Astro image
M42 is a superb target to get started with
Nicely framed too , although personally I like my diffraction spikes north south on an image , some folk don’t really bother
Did you crop quite a bit around the image ??
Background obviously needs cleaning up, but calibration and some processing can fix that issue
Also to get your PHD2 guiding up and running on a first attempt is a tremendous achievement, some folk struggle with it. Next time maybe push for longer subs up to 2 minutes and see how your stars fair
Did you use a coma corrector as I can detect a little bit of coma towards the corners or maybe Collimation is a tad out ??
So great result and very happy for you !!
On and upward from here ......

Clear Skies
Martin

[multiweb]

That is excellent data. Very well done. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Stephane]

Thanks Mark, Hans and Martin!




Thanks, I didn't pay any attention to where the diffractions spikes would appear, but for now I think I quite like that random look. Maybe in time, I will try orienting them.

I cropped a little, maybe 15% of the image was cut off. I had some weird colours and dark corners that I couldn't remove in processing. Perhaps in time, as I improve processing skills, I won't need to crop so much. Not having any flats surely didn't help. This camera has very heavy vignetting.




Yes, agreed. I might actually take some flat frames now and re-attempt processing, maybe slightly darker this time. I am also looking forward to adding much more data to this image.

Thanks Martin re guiding, I believe it's thanks to all the parameters you sent me. They worked perfectly first time. I polar aligned with the 3 point polar alignment technique in NINA which Cuiv raves about. It got the mount polar aligned within an arc minute. Not sure whether that would help guiding, but I'm glad I did it.



I'd love to. The only issue I am having with NINA is that it is not allowing me to do more than 30 second exposures which I found extremely annoying. 30 seconds is the limit of the camera. I have an intervalometer which overrides that and can take longer subs, but I haven't worked out if / how Nina can override it. :help:



I did use the coma corrector. I have the same one as you the Baader MPCC MkIII. I attached it to the ring adaptor on one end and the L-Extreme filter on the other end. Not sure why there is still coma and have no idea how I am going to fix that :(

Thanks for all your input.
Stéphane

[Plossl68]

Wow Stéphane, I’d be wrapped if I managed an image like that first go. I think you’ve inspired me to give it a try.

[Stephane]

Thanks Paul, I am wrapped. This hobby is proving so far to go way beyond my expectations. Weirdly, I even look forward to the boring parts, such as setting up and polar aligning! When I slewed to the Orion Nebula, I was certain I did something wrong and wasn’t on target. I did a 10 second test exposure and my heart skipped a beat when I saw it in the snap shot. Those moments are just priceless.

The only way up the learning curve is to watch tons of YouTube videos and ask lots of questions. I personally still have a long way to go before I climb 1% of the curve :lol:

Stéphane