M42 Orion

[carlstronomy (Carl)]

Hello,
Managed to get the scope out after a few days of wind here in Brisbane. First try at M42 with my newly modded 450d and it looks to be working fairly well. Images are made up of the following subs which I will expand on when she rises a little earlier in the night, this one should look good with 4 hours plus of data.

Core: 20 minutes of 40 sec x 1600 subs (best 80%)
Main: 115 minutes of 90 sec x 1600 subs (nest 80%)

Complete set of darks, bias and flats to go with each group, stacked in DSS as two separate images and blended into one in PS.

Hope you like, feed back both good and bad always welcome.

Carl

[rcheshire (Rowland)]

Beautiful Carl. Nicely done. It's that time of the year again.

[nebulosity. (Jo)]

WOW! Thats awesome Carl a modded camera is great aye

Jo

[carlstronomy (Carl)]

Rowland, thanks and yes without doubt the best time of year and probably will be for the next few years for me while learning this hobby. You can not get a better object for learning with, so over used but so important recommend to all newbies like myself.

Jo, thanks yep can't beat a modded camera and it only took me a couple of hours. Took on the project myself as no one in AU seems to offer the service like in the US.

I did a lot more processing in DSS before transferring the image to PS. Seems to have given a little more clarity in the data.

Carl

[nebulosity. (Jo)]

Originally Posted by carlstronomy

Jo, thanks yep can't beat a modded camera and it only took me a couple of hours. Took on the project myself as no one in AU seems to offer the service like in the US.

Carl

Yeah it isn't that hard, as long as you remember were all the screws go

I'm only 16 and I did a full mono debayer mod no problem. So anyone should be able to remove a low pass filter

[chances]

Originally Posted by carlstronomy

I did a lot more processing in DSS before transferring the image to PS. Seems to have given a little more clarity in the data.

Carl

Wow very nice Carl!

Love the detail

[Larryp (Laurie)]

Looks good, Carl!

[rcheshire (Rowland)]

Carl. This is not a criticism, just an observation. If you look closely at the centre of the brightest stars you will notice the hole punch effect. If your subs don't show this you might need to mask the stars while applying sharpening/detail enhancing/wavelet type applications during post processing. I'm not familiar with PS, so not sure how to apply a star mask. In principle, if you extract the L*/brightness channel, invert it and set as mask, it should protect the stars - but that's a Pixinsight method.

[LightningNZ (Cam)]

Hi Carl,

Great work!

Give it another go with Louie's awesome PhotoShop deconvolution tutorial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rsDRx73gWM

I've used a heap now and can tell you it's a real winner.

Cheers,
Cam

[carlstronomy (Carl)]

Thanks Jo, Chances and Larry much appreciated.

Rowland, you are right on I did not even notice the three stars that I had killed by during processing. Its the core data I killed not the main image. Thanks for noticing and its not taken as criticism I need that type of feed back.

Cam, thanks and I have just had a look at the link you gave me I was not using the advanced setting only basic. I have a go at the feather but it failed I will try that again later.

Carl

[multiweb (Marc)]

Nice pic. Well done. It's mirrored.

[paul71 (Paul.)]

hi carl ,great image am going to give m42 a go myself soon when i get the chance;

[carlstronomy (Carl)]

Marc, thanks and yes you are correct this is something I have not done as yet and will have to start adding to my task list, thanks for bringing it up.

Thanks Paul, have fun with this one its a great subject.

Carl

[carlstronomy (Carl)]

Hello to all,

Managed to get another 2 hours of data last night on good old M42. Have now been able to get much more data with out the need for over processing thus the image looks much crisper and less sharpened.

Main image made up approx. 3 hours 48 minutes of lights
Core image made up approx. 20 minutes if lights

Dark, flats, bias for all of the above.

Carl

[FlashDrive (Poppy)]

That's great ...M42 probably the most photographed Neb' in the Southern Hemisphere.

Flash.....

[EricB (Eric)]

Very nice! Did you image it with the C9.25?

Eric

[carlstronomy (Carl)]

Thanks Flash much appreciated.

Eric thanks, yes all my imaging is carried out on the C9.25 as this is my only scope except for my short tube 80 for guiding. Its a struggle for new newbie even at around f7 with the reducer but not too bad.


I will be building a steel pillar over the next month or two and concreting it in so I will be able to get my drift alignment spot on and my wedge will give me some super tracking for some 5 minute subs. I got a couple in a while ago but it was luck rather than skill. I cant wait to really get some nice images going.

I struggled last night with what I thought was poor tracking due to seeing but eventually worked out my elongated stars was from focusing not tracking. This has frustrated me a couple of times over the past week now I know what it seems to be. Spent over an hour on this and lost crucial time. I used my mask at the start and it told me everything was spot on. I started to get frustrated and nudged the focus and found the stars became rounder so I nudged it again to get satisfactory stars even better than the night before. I must be doing something wrong with the mask, it is a home made one using the web template and cut from cardboard. I have been using this mask for six months with no issues I had to cut three slots where the Knobs go but this is over the centre obstruction and should make no difference. The only thing different I have done lately is added Bobs Knobs but everything went well and my collimation is very good.
Any help or advice on this would be much appreciated

Thanks for reading
Carl

[lazjen (Chris)]

These are great pics and I like the progressive improvement. Great stuff.

[LightningNZ (Cam)]

Very impressive final image. There's some great detail in there.
-Cam

[Shooting_Star (Romina)]

Lovely shot, Carl