M42 (Reprocessed image added)

[AlexN]

Well.. After spending almost an hour messing around with guiding, I finally got to taking some images...

This shot was going to be done through the C11... however I could not get my DBK31 to come to focus in the M102 for guiding... which I must say, Really sucked... I had a quick look at the target through the C11, then mounted up the M102 on its own with the QHY8...

Gain:50
Offset:121
30x45second subs (22.5min total exposure)

Had a play with photoshop, but not too much done really..

I think focus was a little off, and one thing became immediately apparent... I need more data... As soon as I tried to agressively stretch the data it would become grainy... Im pretty happy with this image however, being of one of my favorite subjects, and being that the image showed that cleaning my QHY8 was the right thing to do :D

Thanks for looking.
Alex.

EDIT.
2nd image in this post is a complete reprocess of the data. I'm much happier now..

[Phil]

nice one Alex. Looking good mate.
Phil

[strongmanmike]

Ah yes Murphy was at work again it seems?

Nice result, it looks a bit uniformly magenta to me but M42 is M42 YEAH! :)

Mike

[AlexN]

Thanks guys...

Fresh morning eyes have helped a bit with the editing process....

The first shot posted in this post is a re-do of the one from last night, same data 30x45sec Megrez102.

The 2nd shot uploaded is __THE__ first photons collected by my C11.. Shot @ F/6.3 - 10x20sec, Gain 50, Offset 115, Bin 2x2 (hence no color) for 20sec subs thats come up great in my opinion.. Bin2x2 does increase the sensitivity of the camera somewhat though..

By that stage of the night the moon was coming up, followed closely by the sun.. So I packed it in just after...

[multiweb]

Very cool Alex. You gotta be happy with that. :thumbsup: Only gets better.

[Matty P]

Awesome Alex, great to hear that your C11 finally captured some photons!

Nice images as well. I'm wanting to go really deep on M42 once it returns to the evening sky. I can't wait!

Keep 'em coming. :)

:thumbsup:

[TrevorW]

Good one Alex like the grayscale

[Striker]

One of my favourite areas to image...nice shot Alex.

Now get some serious exposure time.

[AlexN]

i couldn't go longer because i couldn't get focus with my guide scope.. I experimented today aiming the scope at a house about 1km away, found that i needed a 1 inch extension tube to reach focus. Next night out will be from the very dark skies of the barambah dark sky camp! Should be promising!

[Jen]

:thumbsup::thumbsup: Nice work Alex keep it up cheers :thumbsup::thumbsup:
Jen

[Bassnut]

Disappointing Alex, your a smart man, expect more, 45 secs just wont get you the nebula extention.

[batema]

Alex, when you say you need more data are you talking abiut instead of 30 x 45 sec shots you would go 60 x 45 sec or are you talking about maybe 10 x 7 minute shots.
Mark
Ps great shots.

[AlexN]

Fred, The short subs were due to the setup being unguided... I wanted to do 20x2min + 20x10min and blend them together.... however I couldnt get my DBK to focus in my guide scope, and didnt think to try an extension tube untill earlier today when I was thinking about it...

Mark, as I just mentioned to Fred, longer subs and more of them...

[AlexN]

I think I've done a really good job reprocessing the data from last night.. I almost ALMOST considered a new post for it.. :)

Anyways, this was stacked using Median combine rather than sigma clipping, a few other things done in photoshop CS3..

This is the full frame image from the Megrez 102. No crop, just resized to 800px for the forums.

I am rather happy with it!!! (despite short exposure :P)

[peter_4059]

Alex,

A great improvement over the initial image. That scope/camera combination gives a great scale image for M42.

Peter

[AlexN]

Thanks Peter,

I tend to agree, the M102 + QHY8 delivers a very nice amount of sky with which to play with... However I'd planned for that using Starry Nights FOV indicators, I entered the details of all the scopes that I was considering purchasing as my imaging scope, added the info on the QHY8 chip size. and then checked out what area of sky I could image with each....

Im strongly considering jumping into EQMOD, and more so EQMosaic for use with the C11, The C11 will do well on galaxies and planetary nebs, but as seen in the close up image I posted earlier, to get the bigger targets I'll need to do mosaics.. EQmod seems to support this plan well, provided it works as it says it does...

I think that would make for a good project though... Doing a 7 - 10 panel mosaic of the whole orion area from the running man to the flame with the detail that the C11 will be able to pull out with longer subs...

ahh.. Im probably getting ahead of myself... but as I always say... Jump in the deep end :)

[bluescope]

Good looking M42 Alex, nice wide field. I thought there might be a little more detail in the image so I tweaked it a little ... hope you don't mind ... if you don't like it let me know and I'll remove it ok ! I've included your original post to allow you to easily see the difference.

:thumbsup:

[AlexN]

Dont mind at all Steve, Thanks..

The way I look at it, I'm still very much a beginner in deep sky photography, so any little tweaks or touch ups someone wants to do is all good for me in the long run..

:)

[Jen]

:thumbsup: there getting better Alex cheers :thumbsup:
:D:D

[Hagar]

Very nice Alex. You are getting a grip on the camera quite quickly. M42 is a hard image to shoot well and the more you try the more you will find to do to the image to improve it. Lots of fine detail in the viel area and lots of detail in the core area. with both longer and shorter subs yo will be able to combine images to bring out both areas of detail. It is a great target to learn on for these and many other reasons.

Great start and keep at it.

[Tandum]

I'm sure we'll sort out all your guiding issues at Barambah this week-end. I wouldn't mind sharing data on orion with you and trying to combine the different scope data. I better remember to load my PS actions onto my laptop. Don't normally process images on it. :)

[AlexN]

Doug, Thanks mate, I actually found the QHY8 to be fairly easy to come to grips with... The first night I used it I pushed the gain a bit hard because I wasnt seeing much in the preview screen... Pretty silly really, Should have figured that with 1sec preview exposures I wasnt going to see much :D

Just from what I've seen so far, I can tell the C11 is going to give BRILLIANT results once I sort everything out..

Speaking of which, Robin, Im sure we can sort out guiding, and if so... That big honkin SCT is going to get a workout and a half! :D

Yeah I got a bunch of stuff to put on my lappy before the weekend... Needs DSS for starters... ps actions + filters... planetary image processing stuff (Just in case) Must bring CD's to burn data off if HDD starts filling up, and bring the external HDD... Ugh... so much to do before Friday.