M42 - Orion Nebula

[iceman]

Hi all

This is my first deep space image in about 6 months, taken at the Pony Club in March but only just got around to finish processing it.

It's not too pretty - the background is very messy and there was awful horizontal banding in the dim areas. It was the first light for my modded 40D, and I took darks instead of ICNR.
So the horizontal banding and horrible background could've been any number of things including the camera, the USB, the power, the darks, the flats.
I was able to remove most of it with a Noel Carboni action.

I'll need to re-stack without darks, look at the raw lights etc, to try and figure out where they are. I had a horrible time guiding as usual, too.

I'm fairly happy with the nebula itself, but overall the image is pretty messy. I'm also not really sure why the modded camera didn't capture more of the dim browny/dusty areas. With 50 minutes of data @ISO800 I would've expected to capture more with the modded 40D.

Still, it was nice to capture some photons and get some practise in before Mudgee tomorrow!

ED80 + modded 40D on EQ6. 10x 5 minute lights @ ISO800, 10x 100s, plus 10x30s for the core layers.

1200px higher-res here (500kb):
Orion - M42 (http://www.mikesalway.com.au/download/52)

Thanks for looking. Suggestions welcome.

[duncan]

Hi Mike,
This really dosn't look that bad,LOL.
First Light at least you got something to point you the right direction.
Hope you get it all sorted asap as i miss your images.
Still cloudy up here so no joy for me.
All the best with it,
Duncan:thumbsup:

[renormalised]

Not a bad shot , Mike, despite the banding in the pic (which you have to look for to notice). Focus on the neb' and you forget anything else:):)

[Screwdriverone]

Looks Nice Mike,

Very pretty composition and framing...

Thanks for posting it.

Cheers

Chris

[h0ughy]

well done Mike - id be happy with that (i am happy with most things LOL ;))

[DavidU]

Nice one Mike. I like the framing.

[allan gould]

Good one Mike. Nice tight stars and nicely framed. The balance of bright core and nebulosity is excellent. Yoy have to go really deep ie several hours to pick up the fain dust and very, very careful with the processing.

[bmitchell82]

Nice shot there mike.

With the 40d and dusty stuff i find that it needs 10 min of exposure to pick it up. I like you have the 40d with the mod, but mines a open mod with a screwin Astronomik 2" UVIR filter much better in my eyes!

http://s700.photobucket.com/albums/ww3/brendanmitchell1982/?action=view&current=RunningmanandM42.png

Same image same composition (added MPCC for field flattening) only difference is this was taken in a bit of light pollution and 10 min subs!

Feel free to ask me anything you want with the 40d often you can pick up great info from others with the same equipment!

Brendan

[CoolhandJo]

Very nice :) Colours are very crisp. Great detail as well.

[cybereye]

Mike,

It's a great shot and lets me see where I need to improve with mine. Thanks for posting it!

Mario

[TrevorW]

Nice image Mike

good framing and well processed

[multiweb]

I think it looks great. Details in the neb are fantastic and the core is very well processed. Just putting my nitpicking hat on now as you've asked for suggestions and I assume you're looking at ways to get the most out of it: pic is a tad too blue, very slight field curvature on the top corners (P-FLAT IV works well for this). Also think that more neb can be extrated on the surroundings as you have very good quality data but that's personal taste. Maybe lower the black point a bit. Great shot anyway. :thumbsup:

[Ric]

Very nice Mike

The framing looks great and looking forward to more of your deep sky images.

[lacad01]

Good stuff Mike :thumbsup:
Good to see you posting up images again, can't really add to what's already been said but think it's a great pic, nice details.

[suma126]

looks perfect to me mike.:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

[leinad]

Nice image there Mike.

Unfortunately I don't think you'll be able to get rid of that noise banding; Seems every modded 40D has it.
If anyone has a solution or fix; I'm all ears.

[Jeffkop]

Yeah Mike ... thats a shocker :lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

[Baptista]

Congratulations! Vaery pretty!

[gregbradley]

That's a beauty. Despite your troubles it turned out very nicely.

Greg.

[iceman]

Thanks guys, appreciate the comments. It's nice to be able to post something again.

I'm in Mudgee now, and hoping for clear skies for the next 2 days to capture some more images.

[Robbie]

It's not too pretty - the background is very messy and there was awful horizontal banding in the dim areas. It was the first light for my modded 40D, and I took darks instead of ICNR.
So the horizontal banding and horrible background could've been any number of things including the camera, the USB, the power, the darks, the flats.
I was able to remove most of it with a Noel Carboni action.

I'll need to re-stack without darks, look at the raw lights etc, to try and figure out where they are. I had a horrible time guiding as usual, too.

I'm fairly happy with the nebula itself, but overall the image is pretty messy. I'm also not really sure why the modded camera didn't capture more of the dim browny/dusty areas. With 50 minutes of data @ISO800 I would've expected to capture more with the modded 40D.

!

ED80 + modded 40D on EQ6. 10x 5 minute lights @ ISO800, 10x 100s, plus 10x30s for the core layers.

1200px higher-res here (500kb):
Orion - M42 (http://www.mikesalway.com.au/download/52)

Thanks for looking. Suggestions welcome.[/QUOTE]

Yes you are right Mike this is a hideous amateurish photo and you really do need to lift your game because you are slipping!!!!!:D

[Paul Haese]

Mike just check for RF type interference from your cables. I found that bundling the power cables together and the download cables separately pretty much removed this problem with the banding when I was doing DSLR images.

I like the sharpness of the image and guiding looks good, but I am not 100% keen on the colour. When I have viewed this through Tims 22 I saw some hints of green in this nebula. The colour is also verified by the lack of orange stars in your image. There are some there and use these as your guide for colour balance. Usually I find if your stars are the right colours and saturation the rest of the image looks right too.

There is also some faint nebulosity in this image that I can just see with my overly bright screen, but pushing that out might cause the banding and diagonal noise to really leap out.

Good image all the same, especially given you have not imaged it for a while. However, time you did another object though. How many times have you imaged this now?`:P

[iceman]

Thanks Paul. I thought about the interference too and will check for that next time.

I also agree with the colour - it came out very blue and i'm not sure if it's the white balance settings on this modded camera. I'll check the colour temperature and maybe re-stack. I did notice the lack of orange stars, especially compared to my last image of M42 which was over 1.5 years ago.

Yes - it's been 1.5 years since I imaged this nebula so I thought it was time for it again :) The last time was before IISAC2008 in October 2008..

Thanks again.