M42 & Ngc253

[zipdrive]

M42 and NGC253 shot on the morning of 10/9/2005 when the temperature was down to 1.5 degrees here in Perth :cold:

20 x 3 minutes @ ISO200 Canon 350D
200mm f/5 Newtonian EQ6 autoguided
Stacked in Iris, Levels adjusted in Photoshop

you guys must be sick of looking at these 2 objects by now :P

[xstream]

Love the 3D effect of M42.
Well done! :thumbsup:

[RapidEye]

Excellent shots!!! You can even make out the begining of the "Running Man" nebual next to M43.

How did you get that "spray" effect on the bright star at the bottom of the image (when rotated properly)???

[iceman]

Wow zip, they're your best yet! Incredible shots.

[Striker]

Thats just beautiful Zippy.

Well done mate.

Never get sick of these targets....

[davidpretorius]

thats right, i am getting sick of them.

I am sick and tired of beautiful and brillant shots. Ok Eddie, Zip, Striker et al, stop doing it this minute!!

Zip, you should know that this would be the last forum that would be sick and tired of this.

I am going to have another go at these two.

Big question, can you get the 6 inner stars or orion sharp in detail and also get the lovely colours of the nebula. I think that would be the ultimate.

I am going to try toucam in prime focus (200+ x) tonight to see how many stars i can resolve (hopefully 6). I will be interested in what colour gets picked along the way!

Now, i am going to have another look at your great pics!

[seeker372011]

usually the way to do this is to composite a short exposure of the Trapezium area with a much longer exposure for the rest of the nebula. see

http://www.astropix.com/HTML/J_DIGIT/COMP2.HTM

[beren]

Stunning shots :) Aye caramba i thought friday night was a lost cause here in perth with cloud springing up in the arvo , should have set the alarm for early early morn :zzz:

[atalas]

Great work Zip ! how I love those little tight stars .


Louie :thumbsup:

[davidpretorius]

thanks seeker, nice link!

[asimov]

FANTASTIC!! What else is there to say??

[fringe_dweller]

Yep - once again as usual i am running out of superlatives on this forum! Well done Zipster! That Orion neb. is KILLER! nice job not burning out the centre!!? how did you do that? - very skillful - go the 350D, WOOOT!! I assume thats unmodded?
Kearn

[zipdrive]

Thanks everyone for your positive comments :)

Rapideye, the bright stars in most of my photos seem to have flares towards one side of the diffraction spikes.. as I understand this is caused by imperfections in my optics..i'm still working on it.. :confused:

fringe_dweller, the 350D is unmodded..and i'm quite happy with it too :thumbsup: the centre of the nebula isn't perfect, no special processing done on it but i'm hoping to come back to it using the technique seeker refered to (Thanks for the link seeker!)

i waited for 4-5 hours in the freezing cold the night after to get shots of the neighboring nebulas but the clouds never went away... :doh:

[Robby]

You guys are keen doing M42 so early in the year! Plenty of warm summer nights to catch that one to come! Great shots though!!! If you image a littler more to the left you would have caught the running man nebula. I can just see the edge of it on your shot.
I'm never sick of seeing astro shots here. I know the amount of effort required to do it, so keep 'em coming!
Cheers