Managed to sneak in 7.5 subs of 5 mins (had to cut the last short thanks to cloud, hence x7.5 ) of M 45 a couple nights back 1 day after full moon. Taken JUST prior to moonrise.
Not really pleased with the result - blotchy, too blue - will try toning it down more. Not much detail out of these subs, but I can build on it somewhat - better yet, restart the lot.
Certainly not APOD
Vixen FL102S, Skywatcher NEQ6 with Orion SSAG guiding, Canon 5DMkII (stock-standard, no cooling)
Nice effort! I think you've actually captured more detail in the nebulosity than you realise...
I've taken the liberty of posting a quick non-linear stretch (Curves in PhotoShop) of your image. (Please let me know if you'd like me to remove it - I'll happily do so.) It'll look much better applied to the original stack.
If you compare your data to the recent APOD, you'll find that you've captured a fair bit of the nebulosity in a short time. It only gets better!
Dave, no, it's fine to leave iit - I too saw how much extra data was there, but just look how blotchy it looks - I toned it back for at least SOME aesthetic balance Not always necessary to extract everything, especially when so little data.
DSS also isn't QUITE aligning one sub - got to find which one (likely the shorter one). I also processed this by forcing a different set of darks, flats and bias - I THOUGHT I had a set of ISO 500 / 300 sec saved, but only had ISO 500 / 600 secs, so forced them - the image would be a LOT smoother with correct frames
) of M 45 a couple nights back 1 day after full moon. Taken JUST prior to moonrise.
