M42 hi res with Canon 40D

[Dennis]

Well, what a night that was! My first outing since Nov last year and I was all fingers and thumbs.


It took me 3 hours to set up and get going; I was sooooo rusty.
The Moon had risen by the time I had got my act together.
We had a power cut part way through the evening and I lost a batch of 5 minute exposures - I heard the local sub-station go "whuumphhh" as the lights went off.
I forgot to fasten the mount locking knob that fastens the mount to the tripod head – luckily it was all well balanced.
I forgot to tighten the clamp on the DEC shaft of the Tak mount, so it wobbled as the mount tracked.
I couldn’t find the spacers to give the correct focusing distance for the Canon 40D on the Mewlon 180 and the Orion Deep Sky guide camera on the WO 66 so I had to bodge some adapters from various threaded rings that I had.
I tried auto guiding without the GPUSB plugged in!
At 11:30pm I read Matt’s e-mail about the occultation of Regulus by the Moon so I tore down the side-by-side system and replaced the Canon 40D with the DMK21AF04 and captured my first AVI around 11:55pm after a few trials and tribulations with the Firewire PCMCIA card.
The clouds arrived just before mid night so at 1:00am I packed up.

Apart from those humorous misfortunes and operator incompetence, I had a ball; it was really, really good be under the stars once more and I managed to rescue the following images of M42:

1 x 5 minute exposure
1 x 3 minute exposure
10 x 60 second exposures

Here is the result, a central region 1024x768 crop from the full frame of 3888x2592.

Mewlon 180 F12 at prime focus.
Canon 40D (Live View for focus) with mains adapter.
Guided through a side-by-side WO 66 Petval with Orion Deep Sky Star Shooter and GPUSB.
Images aligned and combined in ImagesPlus 3.
Curves, mild USM and cropped in CS3.

Oh, I also got to see Regulus kissing the Moon's limb through the finder scope just before ingress.

Cheers

Dennis

[Matty P]

A little bit rusty I see. :lol:

I'm glad the clouds finally cooperated and cleared for you Dennis.

It can get sooooo frustrating when you have all your imaging equipment set up all ready to go. Then in a blink of an eye, what do you know. A thick blanket of clouds has already covered the night sky. It has happened to me too many times. :rolleyes:

You captured a very nice pic there Dennis. Lovely detail and colour. Well done. :)

[davidpretorius]

last november............geez........sun ny queensland is a misnomer!

look out joop, dennis is ironing out the kinks

[allan gould]

I know what you mean about getting rusty. I went through nearly the same set of experiences except I packed up, almost in tears of frustration, after nearly ripping all my cabling off with the mount swinging to the object and getting belted in the side of the head with the 21lb counterweight as I went to rescue the cables.
After unexpectledly seeing the wrong sort of stars I went to bed.

[Garyh]

Thats a excellent result Dennis, sounds like you had some kind of a night.
You deserve a drink!
Good to see some stars again, I did the same here the other night. Had 2 hours of clear sky and even the full moon didn`t stop me from having a go! and yes I did exactly the same...lol a closeup of Orion :thumbsup: but not as nice as yours!
cheers

[Dennis]

Thanks Matty, Dave and Gary. Ouch for you Allan, I hope you recover soon but more importantly, no damage was done to the equipment!:whistle:

Here is the original image resampled down to 1280x859 to show the extent of the FOV of the Mewlon 180 at F12 with the Canon 40D.

There is much to learn about colour image processing, let alone acquiring the damn things in the first place! This incredible region is just begging for longer subs and lots more of them! Perhaps a well worn cliché, I have found M42 a wonderful and exciting object as my starting point for my long sojourn into DSLR imaging.

Cheers

Dennis

[ballaratdragons]

The colours are beautiful, Dennis!!! :thumbsup:

Detail is exceptional, and those orange stars!!!! They are everywhere :eyepop:

Very nicely done :)

[h0ughy]

very pleasing Dennis. nice rustic touch mate lol

[alan meehan]

very lovely shot ,dennis i know when the cloud clears down here we will have the same problems,its a learning curve well done

[jjjnettie]

Lovely image Dennis.

[Ric]

Well done Dennis, the Trap area is very nicely resolved.

I know what you mean about the clouds as well, I am busily reading my scopes manual so I'll know how to switch it on when the cloud breaks.:lol:

Cheers

[Dennis]

Thanks Ken, Dave, Alan, Jeanette & Ric.

I was quite surprised at how much the Canon 40D picked up in a single 5 minute exposure, despite a gibbous 3rd Qtr Moon poking its head into the skies. It was also quite a warm night (22 deg C) so I’m looking forward to see what the camera can do at a dark sky site at temps below 10 deg C.

Cheers

Dennis

[2020BC]

Magnificent detail at that focal length. Focus is good; tracking is good; little noise is evident. That's a ripper. One of the best I've seen of the trapezium that close up. Should be great when you stack more images.:thumbsup:

[Dennis]

Hmm, I’ve just compared a stack of 2 x 30 second Canon 40D Prime Focus images with some images I took through the same ‘scope last year, but using a x2.5 PowerMate and the DMK21AF04 ccd camera and I reckon the Canon 40D image has also picked up the fainter stars G, H1, H2, and I.

What do you think?

Cheers

Dennis.

[jase]

Great work Dennis. Resolution is spot on. The Mewlon 180 appears to be working a treat. 'bout time you guys up north got some clear skies. Look forward to seeing how hard you'll push the 40D.