M42

[atalas]

This is a composite of two 2minute subs and a 30sec sub of M42 I shot on Sunday night . I need more exposure time to bring out the fainter areas of the neb I guess.

All comments and helpful hints are welcomed guy's :)

[EddieT]

Great one Louie!
Love the colours, but there seems to be a bit of a greenish cast on the stars. It's a hard object to image with so many really bright and really dim bits.

[asimov]

WOW Louie...What a great shot! She's a rippaa mate!

[astroboy]

Hi Louie
Looks great to me , some more exposure time would be nice though.
If I comine frames I like to have about 4 of each to do a median combine to get a smoother result, not so sure with aone shot couour though.
Seems people are using longer exposures now than the film days.
Taken with the 80mm I assume?

Zane

[atalas]

Thanks Eddie,yeh I couldn't get rid of It ,any suggestions dude ? have I pushed the green too far in levels ? or is It the light pollusion ? I didn't use a CLS filter just an IR filter . :confuse3:

[atalas]

Thanks John !

[asimov]

The green stars don't worry me! The neb came out a beaut! Well done again.

[atalas]

Thanks Zane ,and yes sorry I should of mentioned It was taken with the ED80 and know doubt in my mind that these SXV's single shot colour need longer exposures to get a smoother result Zane. Still I enjoy It more than the ST7 I had :) I should mention that I had auto-guide to get 1 minute on the G11 but with the SXV-autoguide camera It is fairly easy .

[h0ughy]

Nice Louie Nice! now all yoiu need are some nice 2, 5 and 10 minute shots to build up a lovely composite picture. Love the sharpness and detail that you have picked up to date though!

[atalas]

Thanks John I'm glad you like the image , It seems to be very different from many others I've seen in colour . I do wonder though If I ended up with that green around the stars by trying to get the trap looking white ? :confuse3:

[atalas]

Thanks David, yes I'll try and get some longer exposure at some point in time (If the weather ever stays clear and steady long enough) had to do this with clouds all around . I was hoping I could get some exposures on the B33 but the clouds had other ideas :sad: oh well mate that's life ! :)

[Striker]

Hey Louie...have you tried imaging through your C11 with a F3.3 focal reducer yet.

I would like to see the difference between the ED 80 and the C11 reduced in focal length.

[atalas]

Yes Tony but I ended up with realy bad looking stars and havent tried again . I guess I need to find the proper spacing between reducer and camera . I'm not to fust about It as yet,still have a lot to learn about shooting well and processing .

[EddieT]

Two options Louie, either increase the red and blue high-points, or lower the green highpoint. Not sure what software you are using, but in Photoshop you'd use levels and try to keep the midpoints where they are so it only affects the brightest parts of the image, i.e. the stars and the nebula core.

[atalas]

Thanks Eddie I'm using PS7 ,I'll see what I can do with It :)

[atalas]

another go It ,don't know If its better or worse :confuse3: I think I dropped some of the green.

[astroboy]

I think the second one's the the go Louie . White stars and smoother look , any way of lowering the contrast or lightening it a tad , the sky may be a bit too dark.
keep them coming.

Zane

[davidpretorius]

awesome louie, i have a long way to go to catch up!

[atalas]

Yeh that's what I thought too Zane ,I'll have another go at It :)

[atalas]

Thanks Dave, all you need is some tracking ,guiding and a camera capable of long exposure dude !

[Striker]

Yep...I'll put $20 on the second one Louie.

If you have some images I would love to play with them....

You have my email address.

[asimov]

Sorry, the second image is nice but the 1st one still has me in! I dunno about anyone else but I get that great 3D effect from it! Love it.

[RB]

That's a very nice shot Louie.
I don't know anything about that type of camera you're using so I can't offer any advice, I've only used a DSLR. But it's a great shot through the 80mm on your mount.

I had a go at adjusting the levels, probably stuffed it up by making it noisier but here it is.
:shrug:

Definitly could use a bit more exposure.

Cheers mate

[atalas]

Thanks Andrew, on your reprocessing I think your trying to bring out the fainter regions ,but I don't think the exposure was long enough to capture It .
If you want I'll send you the uncompressed file so you can have a better go at It .

[atalas]

Thanks john and you have nothing to be sorry for , we all see things a little different and that makes for more interesting images mate . I guess that's why we have so many different looking shots of the same objects ! and how cool is that . :)

[RB]

Yes Please...... :jump2:

[atalas]

No worries Andrew,just give me some time to upload to you takes about 20 minutes to send a big file . :zzz2:

[Striker]

Had a little play with it Louie

Is that raw always that dark Louie.

[xelasnave]

Nice going Louie. Keep at it you can never take too many
alex

[atalas]

Thanks Alex ,yeh you can never take too many but in the last few months It's a wonder we could take any here :cloudy: :lol:

[atalas]

No Tony, that's been through PS I'll send you the TIF file If you want...no point in sending you the raw fits file because you can't use It without the SX software

[ballaratdragons]

Louie,

I have posted a comparison between my Orion Neb and your Orion Neb.

You better get a move on, as you can see by the pics I am right behind you!!!!

These two pics are definately neck & neck :lol:

Pic 1: My fantastic Orion Neb :cool:

Pic 2: Louies one :zzz2:

p.s. Excellent pic Louie

[atalas]

Ken I will always play second fiddle to the master of masters THE KEN ! :prey2:
but hey at least I'm in the orchastra :lol:

ps Thanks mate :)

[ballaratdragons]

LOL!

I've got a loooong way to go as you can see!

That is a great pic Louie. The Great Nebula is one I check out 99% of my viewing nights (when it's up) and you have captured it very nicely.

[seeker372011]

quite like version one myself (despite the green stars)...nice to see you got out and got some imaging going Louie...I haven't had the gear out since October

[atalas]

Thanks Narayan, clouds everyware but after waiting so long I decided to race for the sucker holes !better than nothing mate :)

[Orion]

What color! It blows me away how bright the colors are. Good one Louie.

[iceman]

I like it Louie, looks great. Congrats!

[atalas]

Thanks Ed and Mike :)

[ving]

very seet pic louie!
you have some great colours in that! :)

[EddieT]

HI Louie,
I spent 5 minutes with it. A couple of points. Both the background and green highlights are clipped, meaning, both really dim and really bright green information has been processed out and is therefore lost during processing.

When the highlights are clipped, you lose information on the brightest parts, in this case, the stars and core of the nebula. It's almost impossible to recover the right star colours when this happens. Usually red, green and blue highlight clipping results in white stars because all three colours are at maximum. Your stars were a tad green because only green highlights were clipped.

The dark end was severely clipped. The histogram looked like about a quarter of the low-end info was lost. You can see it in the histogram as the "hump" of information is not all there, but diasappears off the left-hand edge of the graph about halfway down the back-end of the hump. I could see with a little processing that there would have been some significant low-level info there.

This is the black-art of image processing and can lead you down some pretty dark paths if you choose to go that way :evil2:

Here is what I came up with after a few minutes on the JPG you posted. Background lightened and highlight darkened (using Photoshop variations), with slight green highlight decrease using levels.

[atalas]

Great stuff Eddie , time to start looking deeper into the Black Art Of Processing ! no matter how many times I read about clipping the histagram, I just keep on doing It :o I might try taking the file straight into PS after colour conversion in the SX software .

Thanks for all the help Eddie and all ! :)

[atalas]

Thanks David, hope we start seeing some shots from you to soon mate now you have an EQ mount ! :)

[ving]

lol, once i figure out how to do astro pics with my slr...
you are sure to see something early next year tho :)
far too bust atm :(

[EddieT]

No worries Louie!
Keeping all of the elements in minds during processing is certainly not an easy thing to do. Its real easy to forget about one aspect while concentrating on another. That's why getting it all together is as much art as science. It's a black art because you still want to keep it within the constraints of science while using non-scientific methods. Very hairy and the subject of much debate!

[ausastronomer]

Hi Louie,

I am going to throw my 2 cents worth in because you asked me too :lol:

I figured it was a pointless exercise because my knowledge of astrophotography can be written on a postage stamp with a spray gun but here goes and you also asked me to say what I think and not hold back.

I may not know much about taking these pics but I have seen a lot of rippers of this target taken by some of the worlds best amateurs. Consequently remember I am comparing your work to "the best of the best" and in short your image is very good.

My thoughts: :confuse2:

"you are very close" but something is missing and I don't quite know what. I know its a small aperture scope, but maybe you needed more shots or longer shots or the the light pollution has affected you or a combination of all of those things. A few experienced guys have had a crack at re-processing the thing and the image to me in "every case" looks "over processed" and the colours a little false and "forced" so to speak. What is causing this I don't know. I think it could have a lot to do with you getting used to your new scope and camera, your almost there and the important things like tracking etc are obvioulsy fine, I think its a case of fiddling with the variables and you well end up with something sensational

FWIW Here is an image from a friend of mine in the USA Kevin Dixon. Remember that Kevin is very experienced and has a lot of $$$$ worth of toys :nerd:

http://www.kevindixon.westhost.com/M42-narrow_band.htm

CS-John B

[atalas]

Thanks John , you know I value your opinion mate ! :) and thanks for Kevens image of the great Neb, Awesome sight in Ha and OIII mate :eyepop: