One hour Orion (+4.5 Hours RGB)

[Atmos (Colin)]

With just a couple of hours of imaging last night I split my time over a couple of targets, Orion being one of them. Quite happy with hour an hour came up, ended up a little on the shorter side as I didn't want to blow out the core. 6x200s RGB, looking back over the data now I probably could have pushed it to 400s without causing saturation for anything other than the trapezium stars, something to do when I have more than an hour up my sleeve.

Still trying to figure out how to run the HDR without destroying the brighter stars (see the rings int the middle of the stars). I attempted to make a bright star mask but it seemed to do more harm than good, probably just a poor mask!

Higher Res on Astrobin.

[Placidus (Mike and Trish)]

Excellent result-per-hour there. Enjoyable view.

[Somnium (Aidan)]

Really nice Colin , great result

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Beautiful colours Colin, very pleasing M42 is harder than one thinks to process but you have done a pretty good job here.

Mike

[Atmos (Colin)]

Originally Posted by Placidus

Excellent result-per-hour there. Enjoyable view.

Thanks, this is probably my forth or fifth attempt at imaging M42, always been something that has happened like camera failure, guider failure, clouds 5 minutes after I've walked away or anything else. Been determined to actually image it! Didn't want to push for more than an hour

Originally Posted by Somnium

Really nice Colin , great result

Thanks I am hoping in future to put in a few hours of deeper images and use this as my "tone it down" portion.

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Beautiful colours Colin, very pleasing M42 is harder than one thinks to process but you have done a pretty good job here.

Mike

I am still in my novice days of processing, comparing my attempt at processing the M74 data that was recently put up on Dropbox against what Rick did, saw how much I still have to learn

[Stevec35 (Steve)]

A nice result for such short exposure Colin

Steve

[RickS (Rick)]

Yep, great result, Colin!

[DiscoDuck (Paul)]

Really nice Colin. Especially for such a short exposure.

[Atmos (Colin)]

Originally Posted by Stevec35

A nice result for such short exposure Colin

Steve

It is nice working with a target that is so bright. There is only so deep that I can go with 200s exposures though :/

Originally Posted by RickS

Yep, great result, Colin!

Thanks Rick.

Originally Posted by DiscoDuck

Really nice Colin. Especially for such a short exposure.

Should get around to going longer and deeper at some point

[Paul Haese]

For an hours worth of data that is a pleasing result. I like the colouring and detail is just starting to happen. Very good results for such a short period of time. Are you going to keep collecting data on this target?

[Atmos (Colin)]

Originally Posted by Paul Haese

For an hours worth of data that is a pleasing result. I like the colouring and detail is just starting to happen. Very good results for such a short period of time. Are you going to keep collecting data on this target?

At the moment I am trying to decide whether to get in some dark skies and do 1200s RGB or just bite the bullet and do 600s from the light polluted Melbourne.

[Slawomir (Suavi)]

Good colours Colin and I like those faint dusty lines - nicely done with only one hour of data

I think if you have cropped the edges it might have helped a bit with HDR.

[graham.hobart (Graham stevens)]

Thats really pretty mate, good star colours
graz

[Ryderscope (Rodney)]

That's a good result Colin. Mike is correct in saying that this can be a difficult object to process given the wide dynamic range. Paul's question about capturing more data is a good one so will be interesting to see if there are any plans there. I am sure that you will be very satisfied with this result. Keep them coming.

[Atmos (Colin)]

I've added another 4.5 hours of data in 600s exposures from my Melbourne backyard. Thinking that next newish moon I may head to a darker location to get some good quality luminance.
Took me AGES but I finally figured how to make a bright star mask. Running the HDRTransform routine was killing the bright stars.

High Res

[Slawomir (Suavi)]

New version with added data looks great Colin