M 42 with now approx 9 hrs of data and colour.

[batema (Mark)]

Hi,

I suppose I was inspired by Mike Sidonio's amazing Orion Nebula but also JJJ's image with fantastic dust lanes. I wanted to have a real go at this object and do the best I believe I could do. I have focussed on only Orion as I do not have a field flatener so if I got the running man as well my stars may have become egg shaped.

Taken with my W/O Flt 110 with QHY-9 mono at -20c. I have about 5 1/2 hours of Luminance (8 minutes each 1x1 binning) and 1hour 20 min of each RGB (4 min 2x2 binning). I then took 30x10 seconds of LRGB and then 30x30 seconds of LRGB everything with flats,darks and bias frames. I masked the 10s onto the 30s and then that onto the finished 8 minute colour job.

I am sure I will have another go at processing this so all comments more than welcome.

Mark

[alan meehan (Alan)]

Mark it looks a great image but it may be a little dark in the b/g ,might be me ,colour looks great well done
AL

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

You've pushed the black point too far Mark. There should be a lot more back ground dust showing.
M42 itself is gorgeous. You're laying is spot on.

[bmitchell82 (Brendan)]

Its definately picking up the right parts, though on my monitor in addition to the clipping of the black point, it seems it has a green cast to the blue. areas. I would have thought with that much intergration time the dusty stuff would be really starting to shine though.

Keep going on the processing its a hard art to master!

[gregbradley]

You got a lot of things right there and the data is fabulous. As pointed out the data is black clipped. That means the left hand side of the histogram has been cutoff so the dim areas that would normally be showing through with 9 hours of data are missing and some of the fainter whispy tendrils.

Greg.

[multiweb (Marc)]

Great colors. Well done.

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

That is a fabulous image Mark. Your masking has worked a treat on the inner detail.

[Ross G]

Great photo Mark.

Amazing detail and I really like the colours.

Ross.