M42

[jjjnettie]

Orion had just cleared the trees at 5am this morning and I couldn't resist having a go at M42.:thumbsup:
Camera - Canon Powershot, tripod mounted.
56 x 3.2sec exposures, stacked in DeepSkyStacker, processed in PaintShopPro and I smoothed out the noise with Neat Image.
Next time I might drop the exposure down to 2.5 seconds and try to ditch the trails.

[sheeny]

Very good for a stationary tripod Jeanette!

Al.

[Dr Nick]

Thats great for the equipment you used!!;)

[mill]

Very good and not too much star trailing.:)

[RB]

Nice one jjj !!!
Nicely presented too.
You've done a great job with Neat Image, not overdone. :thumbsup:
Great to see Orion making an appearance again.
Looks like we'll be in for a good season.

[h0ughy]

your having some fun JJJ I see. well done

[Tamtarn]

5am.........Gee you're keen Jeanette. Nothing like that crisp early morning air :)

Great image for such basic equipment and short exposures :thumbsup:

[leon]

Bring on M42, looking forward to Orion again, I'm ready.... well done JJJ with the power shot.

Leon

[Ric]

Top stuff JJJ, your doing wonders with the powershot.

Cheers

[Phil]

great stuff jjj getting some nice shots well done. Good to have you back.
Phil

[jjjnettie]

I can't wait to use the GStar again, get some proper imaging done. I've finally worked out how to do colour imaging with it, using the RGB filters. That was a long trial and error process.
But this is pretty good fun in the mean time.
Thanks for taking the time to look.

[Bassnut]

M42 has a very wide dynamic range, you wont get any nebulae at all with faster exposures. A few minuites at least are required to see the beauty of M42 (mixed with fast exposures to stop core burnout). Even manual guiding on a dob with exposures of a few minuites will do wonders for this object.

[Octane]

Jeanette,

What F/-ratio were you shooting at? That's impressive considering it's a point-and-shoot camera!

Regards,
Humayun

[jjjnettie]

I think it was f3.5, or maybe f2.7.
Can't be sure because I've deleted all the original pics and only kept the finished image.
If I wanted to be really serious, I'd put the camera on the Barn door and take advantage of the Powershots 15 second exposures. I'll save that for Astrofest though.

[hickny]

After viewing M42 for the first time last week it has become my favourite DSO.

Your image is GREAT.

Do you have an automatic feature that enables multiple :doh:exposures or do you have to manually depress the shutter button for each exposure?

[jjjnettie]

Peter, I press the shutter manually for each exposure. That is why I use the timer function so I don't get an vibration.
There is a multiple exposure function built in to the camera but I haven't bothered to learn how to use it. Maybe I should eh?