Humble Attempt at M42

[leon]

Hi guys

My Humble attempt at m42 last night, although the seeing was pretty good, the wind was blowing a gale at times, lost PHD Guiding twice, and had to start over, anyway have a look at this and see what you think.

Please comment and be as hash as you like, i need the suggestions.

The image consists of 12 Exposures at 1.00 min at 500 Iso through the Tak and Canon 5D, processed in Image Plus and PS2.

No one, full un-cropped image
No two, half crop of the image.
Leon

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

Hey Leon,

They are great images considering the challenges. I'll be happy if I every get a pic like that of orion.

Peter

[EzyStyles (Eric)]

nicee one leon, hardly notice any clipping very smooth image keep em coming.

[iceman (Mike)]

Nice image Leon, but now it's time for you to step up some more.

12x 1 minute exposures just aren't enough for you anymore. You need to push yourself and your imaging setup - do longer exposures and more of them. Spend a couple of hours or more on the object and get as much data as you can.

Especially on M42, you need to take some short exposures too, so you can process them separately and then layer mask them into the core region and not leave the burnt out core.

You've got the equipment, you've got some great dark skies, and you're learning fast. Put it all together and produce a ripper!

Are you doing flats on every session now? Were these dark frame calibrated, or did you use ICNR?

[Garyh]

Thats a excellent result Leon! don`t have to be hard on this at all!
If you can mask some shorter exposures to preserve the core details like Mike mentions to improve it....but other than that it is a great image..colors look good as well as the background!
cheers Gary

[leon]

Thank You all for your comments, maybe i am getting the hang of it after all.

Mike, I do agree, I will have to learn this layer masking stuff in PS2, I know the equipment is capable of it, so it's just me then.

I appreciate all the constructive comments.

leon

[jase (Jason)]

Great work Leon. You've got the histogram "licked" alright. No clipping.

Now as the others have said, show no mercy. Go long, deep and start pushing your equipment. Make it work for you. I feel certain we'll see some impressive targets from you in the future.

[Tamtarn]

Very nice Leon.

Like you I found it took a long time before I understood about black clipping and learning how to make use of the histogram. But I got the hang of it eventually and it certainly helped improve our images.

I'm sure that when we all start out we're all guilty of black clipping.

You seem to have got the hang of the histogram now I'm sure you can see the difference in your latest image yourself.

Keep them coming

Barb

[leon]

Jase, Barb, thanks for the engouragment, I have to admit I have noticed a vast difference from the images of some 12 months ago, and it's all because of you good people offering so much advice.

Leon

[2020BC (Bill Christie)]

Nice and smooth. Round stars. Looks good. Ice has it right, now you need to take more subs.