M42- My first Prime Focus DSO!

[iceman]

Hi all

I figured it was time to dabble in some DSO's, so last week I bought a Saxon ED80, along with the appropriate adapters to attach my Canon 350D to it.

I gave it first light on Saturday morning, 15th September, from my backyard at about 4am. The seeing wasn't good enough to image Mars with my 12", so I went widefield and put the ED80 on the EQ6 and captured my first DSO!

EQ6, Saxon ED80, Canon 350D.
16x 30s exposures @ ISO800, ICNR on, mirror lockup on, unguided.

I kept the exposures to 30s because I wasn't sure how accurate my alignment was (I didn't dift align) and I wasn't guiding. By the end of the session the sky was brightening and the last few frames had a much bluer background and had to be reduced in processing.

I used ImagesPlus for stacking, and I added the images rather than averaging them to reduce noise. After averaging, the result was too dim due to the short exposures, and stretching the levels reduced the dynamic range too much, bringing out too much grain and made the image look shallow.
After adding, the image was bright enough and I used Noiseware to reduce the noise. Further saturation, levels and curves were adjusted in Photoshop, as well as masking of the core to reveal the fine detail in the trapezium.

I'm really happy with my real image of a Deep Space object! I'm looking forward to dabbling a bit more, eventually with guiding and longer exposures.

Thanks for looking.

[Omaroo]

Good stuff Mike. Glad to see you stepping outside your planetary comfort zone ;) M42 turned out well for you!

I plan to do some DSO work with the D40 at Magellan Observatory this coming long weekend - on some of Zane's perfectly aligned optical gear. I can't wait to see what the D40 can do - good or bad. I suspect that it's sensitive enough to be better than it seems to be given credit.

How much is there involved in stacking using ImagePlus? Are you stacking RAW or JPEG images? Is there a shareware equivalent that you know of?

Cheers
Chris

[beren]

:thumbsup:Fantastic Mike, congrats

[sheeny]

Looks like an excellent start, Mike!

Turned to the dark side, eh?

It's quite a nice composition of the whole sword, not just M42.

Al.

[h0ughy]

there is no turning back now, once you move to the dark side...........nice image Mike well done for the first shot

[[1ponders]]

Top one Mike. Great first DSO!!

Chris, try Deepsky Stacker. It's free and once it's little idiosyncracies are worked out does a pretty good job. (Still prefer IP though :P )

[Omaroo]

Thanks Paul - I'll give it a go! :)

Cheers
Chris

[dugnsuz]

Very nice image Mike
Doug

[DJDD]

great image and I like the captioning.

I think I will look into something for my other terrestrial photos.

[Ric]

Very nice indeed Mike, looking at that image one would think you have been imaging DSO's for years.

Cheers

[Garyh]

Now your talking Mike!
sharp and very nice colors for a unmodded camera!
:thumbsup:

[matt]

Well done, Mike:thumbsup:

You'd have to be fairly happy to open your DSO account with that?

I also enjoyed your Lagoon neb pic in your other thread.

Now...get back to planets and get that DMK crankin'!:lol::P

[Dr Nick]

Wow!~ Amazing shot! ;)

[spearo]

Top shot Mike
Very impressive especially for 30 sec lights. Nice crisp detail, no trailing and even managed to capture the faint parts of the nebula.

very good start to the DSOs indeed!
keep 'em comin'
cheers
frank

[Lee]

First DSO.... very nice.... excellent actually....

[iceman]

Thanks Chris, it was definitely something I wasn't used to but I'm of course already very familiar with my DSLR so this wasn't a huge leap thank goodness.


Like Paul said, DeepSkyStacker is free, and I did use that on my images first. It seemed to do a very good job too, and was maybe a bit quicker than IP. The image turned white in some cases and could only be seen/processed in photoshop after saving as TIF from DSS.

I captured in RAW, and converted to 16bit TIF using RawShooterPremium (after adjusting whitebalance to make them the same).


Thanks Al, I was pleased that the FOV of the 350D with the ED80 could fit the whole sword including the running man.
I don't know about turning to the dark side.. My main love is still planetary, but this is a nice distraction when I can't capture Jupiter anymore and Mars is so low in the North.
I can also tell already that to do DSO's properly i'm going to need guiding, more time, more exposure, etc. It's a lot of work to capture 1 image :)


Thanks Ric, I'm pleased for my very first prime focus DSO - but a lot of the skills and techniques required can be transferred from any type of imaging.

Thanks everyone for your nice comments. It means a lot.

[Rigel003]

That's a knock-out first DSO image, Mike. If you bring the same level of skill to this as your planetary photography we're going to be in for a treat. Fitting to make your very first object M42 too. Beautifully composed.

[ving]

nice first go mike :)
@ 30sec exposures i guess you wouldnt get much in the way of running on of stars (technical name escapes me lol) so they are lovely and round.

what does one exposer look like out of curiosity.

top stuff btw :D

[davidpretorius]

its a sad sad sad day............ bird, paul, let us break out the black arm bands and have a minutes silence tomorrow at the transitting of the grs.

man down behind enemy lines...............no hope for extraction. houghy and 1ponders on patrol......




(seriously, great image.... lets show those dso'rs how easy it is and how hard planetary is!!!)

[h0ughy]

:lol:


Resistance is Futile;)

[Bassnut]

Nice 1st DSO Mike, ill be very interested to see how you progress once you have guiding, given this impressive start.

[StarLane]

Very very nice Mike, excellent detail and dynamic range.

I would love to be able to shoot DSO's like this. One day I will buy an EQ mount etc. M42 is my all time favourite neb.

Cheers.

[jase]

Good start Mike. Two words - longer exposures. Look forward to seeing your future DSO efforts. Really enjoyed your recent wide field post.

Cheers

[leon]

I know i'm a bit late with a comment Mike but that is a great image for a first go, well done, and keep em coming.

Leon