RH200 M42 in Pseudo HDR

[avandonk]

Here is the full res image 8MB

http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.co...1/M42_hd_N.jpg


It is a secret blend of 40x30 seconds of each of RGB and 36x4 minutes each of RGB.

It is tricky to balance the dim stuff with the very bright while battling ever present light pollution.


Bert

[cometcatcher (Kevin)]

It's finger lickin' good!

[Shiraz (Ray)]

that's a remarkable image Bert - almost see the individual photons

[Larryp (Laurie)]

Superb image, Bert

[dutch2 (Ingrid)]

Amazing detail. Beautiful image.
Well done.

[avandonk]

Thanks all for the feedback. I should not process after being up all night. The image is far to noisy. The 30s data modulated the far less noisy 4m data. I think I fixed it.

Here is just the 30sec data 6MB

http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.co...11/M42_30s.jpg


This is a better version of the 30s and 4min data together 7MB


http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.co...11/M42_hdN.jpg




The images below are a 100% crops from the 30s data image at native and upsized X1.5 to show the Trapezium.


Bert

[gregbradley]

You certainly go deep Bert. The core is usually masked in so it only blends in around the centre areas. If you google blending core in M42 you will probably find step by step Photoshop instructions on how to do it.

Greg.

[avandonk]

Yes Greg I do know about these PS 'fixes'. I only did M42 as an exercise to show how fast my RH200 system is as M42 is a standard candle.

I want to do wide field images/mosaics of the really dim stuff. This is all just practice. I just cannot waste my time fiddling with PS to 'fix' every blown out region.

My main interest with imaging is to do very deep high quality wide fields. It is the superb images at longer focal lengths done by many others that then have a context as to their surrounding environment. I do not see imaging as a competition but more as a complement to all the other imagers and their images.

Hiro a Japanese astrophotographer does some superb work. I want to something in between this and the long focal length stuff.

This is his Flickr site.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hiroc/

Here is an image I cobbled together from his data.

http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.co...RO_LMC_SMC.jpg


He now has an RH200!

Bert

[avandonk]

Managed another clear night.

This is 54x4 min in each of RGB. 6MB

http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.co...42_54F_RGB.jpg


This is the full res unstretched data only corrected for darks and flats. 47MB

http://d1355990.i49.quadrahosting.co...12/M42_54F.zip





It does suffer from gradients.

Bert