M78 - Reflection Nebula in Orion

[Emanuele]

Dear all,

on Feb. 20th my club had its monthly member trek to our dark sky imaging site: Area 51.

After fiddling around for 2 hours with Maxim and trying to understand, still, how it works (my gosh how many settings does that program have?!!?) I slewed to M78 and started imaging it.

Turns out that there's some noise problem in the data, and unfortunately nothing much can be done. I have tried my best in processing what I have but I will have to image this one again.

Please go easy on me: this is my first dark nebula and my second light at CCD imaging!

20 x 6 minutes, no darks.

EM200 - Guided with Mini Borg 50
Pentax 125 SDP
SXVF-M25C

Information and bigger image (1500 px - please click on the thumbnail)
http://www.backyardskies.com/Backyar...formation.html

Smaller preview:

[spearo (Frank)]

Emanuele,
looks great
the nebulosity and dark lanes are nicely defined
tracking and focus seem spot on

well done
frank

[Paul Haese]

Lovely image Emanuelle, this is on my capture list.

[Hagar (Doug)]

Another very respectable image. Contrast, focus and framing all done very nicely. I think you are being a little critical of your own images.

Nice capture.

[gregbradley]

Mate, that is a stunning first image. I think you'll find general agreement here that if our first CCD images looked that nice we'd be rapt.

I wrote a longer reply on your other image that gives some tips for one shot colour cameras.

M78 is a quite dark and dim dusty object. A tough target for a one shot colour camera and relatively short total exposure time.

One tip (easy to say not so easy to apply) is think in terms of 4 hours total exposure time as a minimum for virtually any image and 6 hours for galaxies.
Especially for a one shot colour camera that usually are noisy in the dim areas. Even a bright object will look considerably better with several hours of total exposure time.

Greg.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Not sure if I have comented before but that is some great kit you have there Emanuele What's your opinion of the Pentax?

You may be able to get some more out of this data set but I agree with Greg, unfortunately with our punny apertures us amateurs just have to shoot for ages .. be nice to have some serious glass

Never the less a nice piece of work with some lovely rich colours.

Mike

[toryglen-boy (Duncan)]

i would be well proud of that. well done

[Rigel003 (Graeme)]

Beautiful image, Emanuele, and a your web site is very attractive.

[prokyon (Werner Probst)]

Hi Emanuele,

nice shot! Sharp and beautiful colors

cheers

werner

[RB (Andrew)]

A very nice image indeed Emanuele, well done on your first dark nebula.
The noise you talk about is probably coming from Area 51 no doubt.

[atalas]

Nice work mate!

[Omaroo (Chris Malikoff)]

Another great image Emanuele. Well done!

While it is a great image, I just have to say that your website is beautifully constructed, very informative and clean-styled. Very refreshing to see - and being involved in that side of the business I've seen a few.

[Bassnut (Fred)]

Top work for a 2nd image, very smooth. And tricky different......everything, object, gear, web site.......interesting.

[Emanuele]

Thank you so much to all of you guys!!!