M42 The Great Orion Nebula Repro!

[TrevorW]

Might be my monitor but a tad too pink for me although Jen would love it

Good image by the way

Orion shall I or not, me thinks maybe too soon

[gregbradley]

Hi Trevor,

Monitors very tremendously. I use my laptop which is callibrated as part of Adobe. But the business computer monitor makes any red look ghastly.

It is quite red although not particularly pink on my monitor. I toned down the red from earlier versions and it is vibrant for sure but the red histogram was twice the size of the blue and green so there is a lot of red in it.

Colour is a hard one and I try to pull it back a tad as it is easy to present an image too saturated and I have done that many times in the past.

Greg.

[renormalised (Carl)]

I know what you mean Steven but it'd be nice to do a 20 hour version though! Just count your lucky stars we can't reach NGC7000 here!

You'll have to make a trip up to my neck of the woods. The "NAN" is an easy target from here

[javier alves (Javier)]

is very very nice.

regards.

[AlexN]

I agree with Paul Haese regarding the core area blending... The colours in the core are very different, making the blending job look fairly obvious.. Other than that its great to see M42 in the sky again.. I can't wait to have a crack at it again this time around...

Steven - You've got to be kidding right? Overdone, yes, I wont dispute that.. But boring? I want what you've been smoking! M42 is one of those targets that no matter how many times you see it, its still awesome.. and the deeper you go, the more you realise there is a wealth of beauty in the area surrounding M42... The gap between M42 and the running man for instance is a perfect example... theres plenty of dusty areas, reflection neb, emission nebs and colourful star clusters all in one tiny area of the orion region..

Each to their own I guess.. but M42 is the staple of my astro-photography year... I have more images of M42 than I have of any other target, I can't wait to hit it and the horsehead again this year.

[Alchemy (Clive)]

lovely colors, rich yet detailed

[sjastro]

Originally Posted by AlexN

Steven - You've got to be kidding right? Overdone, yes, I wont dispute that.. But boring? I want what you've been smoking! M42 is one of those targets that no matter how many times you see it, its still awesome.. and the deeper you go, the more you realise there is a wealth of beauty in the area surrounding M42... The gap between M42 and the running man for instance is a perfect example... theres plenty of dusty areas, reflection neb, emission nebs and colourful star clusters all in one tiny area of the orion region...

The trouble with commonly imaged objects such as M42 is that when Joe Bloggs takes an image which is considered to have "raised the bar", it usually initiates a flurry of images that may not have superior data, but end being sharper and have greater contrast and colour saturation to Joe's image.

Now while this may not be such a bad thing, the obvious question arises, at what point does artistic license ruin an image?

The fact is that over the years M42 seems to have developed a range of multicolor unknown from the days when David Malin imaged M42 with the 4 metre AAO. The AAO picture looks very ordinary compared to many M42 images today.

I find objects such as M42 not particularly interesting given that we have probably lost what M42 should actually look like in a typical colour image.

Regards

Steven

[bmitchell82 (Brendan)]

Unfortunately for you 20 years ago technology has lept ahead so far its not funny. 1995 486 DX 66 4mb ram 1 gig hdd... 2009... crist i don't know but its unreal.... cameras are far more sensitive in different wavelengths. Im guessing that if David Malin utilized the current technology these colours would magically appear. This is a common thing i come up against in astro photography getting told im cheating and i really don't know what im doing by the more experienced and even more commonly the older people of this hobby (no offence to all you guys that arnt like this because you are out there and i really appriciate your input to my learning). but really im a hobbiest and i utilize the best equipment i can afford (uni student budget) if this produces a colour that you have never seen. oh well now you have seen it!

I myself only have a 10" telescope, raw straight out of the camera though nebulosity when it reads the raw data and runs its de bayer filter comes up in orange/blue/purple/red colours.

If you cant see how well technology has progressed then just go along to your local deep sky night and see whats happening. go along with no preconcived ideas and take what you see on board.

Im with alex on this one. M42 is a beautiful object and well worth the imaging time spent on it... KEEP BRINGING ON THE WEIRD COLOURS PEOPLE I LOVE IT

[RB (Andrew)]

Very nicely done Greg, the image as a whole really appeals to me.
I can't explain the double spikes, would be interesting to find out why they occur.

Thanks for sharing.

[Nightskystargaz (Thomas)]

Greg.

, That was a beautiful pic. I really like it, I'll be looking for some more.

Thanks,

Tom

[prokyon (Werner Probst)]

Wow, a great pic!

I like it how you captured the heart of the nebula.

regards

Werner

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by RB

Very nicely done Greg, the image as a whole really appeals to me.
I can't explain the double spikes, would be interesting to find out why they occur.

Thanks for sharing.

I've been told by another that the collimation is off slightly.
That may well be the case. I had it collimated by Texas Nautical but that was a while ago. I'll check the collimation next time I use it.

Greg.

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by renormalised

You'll have to make a trip up to my neck of the woods. The "NAN" is an easy target from here

Bring on the NGC7000 images! That's interesting you catch it up there.
I suppose you could get M31 and the Veil as well?

Originally Posted by javier alves

is very very nice.

regards.

Thanks Javier and nice to hear from someone in Argentina!

Originally Posted by AlexN

I agree with Paul Haese regarding the core area blending... The colours in the core are very different, making the blending job look fairly obvious.. Other than that its great to see M42 in the sky again.. I can't wait to have a crack at it again this time around...

Steven - You've got to be kidding right? Overdone, yes, I wont dispute that.. But boring? I want what you've been smoking! M42 is one of those targets that no matter how many times you see it, its still awesome.. and the deeper you go, the more you realise there is a wealth of beauty in the area surrounding M42... The gap between M42 and the running man for instance is a perfect example... theres plenty of dusty areas, reflection neb, emission nebs and colourful star clusters all in one tiny area of the orion region..

Each to their own I guess.. but M42 is the staple of my astro-photography year... I have more images of M42 than I have of any other target, I can't wait to hit it and the horsehead again this year.

The core could be lightened more perhaps. I used a different technique than before for blending in the core. Perhaps that is why. I couldn'tm find the earlier technique on the net which had too many steps to remember easily. It was making a clipping mask and you blur the core as a mask down to the area you want and then combine them. But the steps were a bit involved. This one was using the colour range tool to select the bright area of the core and large feathering then saving the selection. Then loading the selection on the main exposure and adjusting the brightness etc.

I agree M42 is a very photogenic area and deserves attention and I personally don't tire of it. Each year though I decide to do a mage exposure version and haven't yet ( except for an FSQ shot about 8 hours). Maybe this year once my new observatory is up and I'll have more imaging time available.

Originally Posted by Alchemy

lovely colors, rich yet detailed

Thanks for that. The red histogram was 3 times bigger than the others.

Originally Posted by sjastro

The trouble with commonly imaged objects such as M42 is that when Joe Bloggs takes an image which is considered to have "raised the bar", it usually initiates a flurry of images that may not have superior data, but end being sharper and have greater contrast and colour saturation to Joe's image.

Now while this may not be such a bad thing, the obvious question arises, at what point does artistic license ruin an image?

The fact is that over the years M42 seems to have developed a range of multicolor unknown from the days when David Malin imaged M42 with the 4 metre AAO. The AAO picture looks very ordinary compared to many M42 images today.

I find objects such as M42 not particularly interesting given that we have probably lost what M42 should actually look like in a typical colour image.

Regards

Steven

It probably is the most imaged object but remember back Steven when you were first imaging and the thrill of a decent image of M42 was pretty good eh?

Originally Posted by bmitchell82

Unfortunately for you 20 years ago technology has lept ahead so far its not funny. 1995 486 DX 66 4mb ram 1 gig hdd... 2009... crist i don't know but its unreal.... cameras are far more sensitive in different wavelengths. Im guessing that if David Malin utilized the current technology these colours would magically appear. This is a common thing i come up against in astro photography getting told im cheating and i really don't know what im doing by the more experienced and even more commonly the older people of this hobby (no offence to all you guys that arnt like this because you are out there and i really appriciate your input to my learning). but really im a hobbiest and i utilize the best equipment i can afford (uni student budget) if this produces a colour that you have never seen. oh well now you have seen it!

I myself only have a 10" telescope, raw straight out of the camera though nebulosity when it reads the raw data and runs its de bayer filter comes up in orange/blue/purple/red colours.

If you cant see how well technology has progressed then just go along to your local deep sky night and see whats happening. go along with no preconcived ideas and take what you see on board.

Im with alex on this one. M42 is a beautiful object and well worth the imaging time spent on it... KEEP BRINGING ON THE WEIRD COLOURS PEOPLE I LOVE IT

Weird colours coming up!

Originally Posted by Nightskystargaz

Greg.

, That was a beautiful pic. I really like it, I'll be looking for some more.

Thanks,

Tom

Thanks Tom. There'll be more coming.

Originally Posted by prokyon

Wow, a great pic!

I like it how you captured the heart of the nebula.

regards

Werner

Thanks Werner. M42 core burns out very very easily so 15 and 30 second shots were taken. Even with that short I checked a few test images first to make sure the core wasn't burnt out before I did the imaging run.

[sjastro]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

I've been told by another that the collimation is off slightly.
That may well be the case. I had it collimated by Texas Nautical but that was a while ago. I'll check the collimation next time I use it.

Greg.

Greg,

If it needs collimation don't worry. BRC-250s are not as difficult to collimate as their reputation suggests.

I've been able to accurate collimate mine using my ST-XME.

Steven

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Yeeeeh noooot baaaad Greg ....some minor improvements possible I guess but oveall hard to complain about an up close and personal image of M42 like this

M42 is perfectly ok to image as often as people like as far as I am concerned......err?..just like Centaurus A

Mike

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by sjastro

Greg,

If it needs collimation don't worry. BRC-250s are not as difficult to collimate as their reputation suggests.

I've been able to accurate collimate mine using my ST-XME.

Steven

That's good news Steven.

How do you collimate using your camera?

I noticed in out of focus stars lately the rings weren't concentric but wasn't sure if that is required with an RC as my RCOS often seemed a bit like that even when the collimation per the Tak collimation scope seemed to be very close.

Greg.

[sjastro]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

That's good news Steven.

How do you collimate using your camera?

I noticed in out of focus stars lately the rings weren't concentric but wasn't sure if that is required with an RC as my RCOS often seemed a bit like that even when the collimation per the Tak collimation scope seemed to be very close.

Greg.

The most important point when using a CCD for collimation is to make sure the camera is perfectly square to the optics.

I collimate the BRC-250 very slightly inside focus. I use planet mode in CCDops software to produce a highly magnified image of a star. This allows small errors to be easily detected.

The exposure time is important. The exposure should be as short as possible to catch periods of good seeing. I collimate by centering the small spot of light in the shadow the secondary.

CCDinspector typically gives 1-2 arc-second error.

Regards

Steven

[gregbradley]

That sounds easy enough.

Do you leave the secondary alone then and just adjust the primary?

Greg.

[sjastro]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

That sounds easy enough.

Do you leave the secondary alone then and just adjust the primary?

Greg.

The instructions are for adjusting the primary.

If you need to centre the secondary you will need to use the Tak collimation scope.

Steven

[gregbradley]

Thanks Steven. That is very helpful

Greg.