M42

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Orion had just cleared the trees at 5am this morning and I couldn't resist having a go at M42.
Camera - Canon Powershot, tripod mounted.
56 x 3.2sec exposures, stacked in DeepSkyStacker, processed in PaintShopPro and I smoothed out the noise with Neat Image.
Next time I might drop the exposure down to 2.5 seconds and try to ditch the trails.

[sheeny (Al)]

Very good for a stationary tripod Jeanette!

Al.

[Dr Nick (Nick)]

Thats great for the equipment you used!!

[mill (Martin)]

Very good and not too much star trailing.

[RB (Andrew)]

Nice one jjj !!!
Nicely presented too.
You've done a great job with Neat Image, not overdone.
Great to see Orion making an appearance again.
Looks like we'll be in for a good season.

[h0ughy (David)]

your having some fun JJJ I see. well done

[Tamtarn]

5am.........Gee you're keen Jeanette. Nothing like that crisp early morning air

Great image for such basic equipment and short exposures

[leon]

Bring on M42, looking forward to Orion again, I'm ready.... well done JJJ with the power shot.

Leon

[Ric]

Top stuff JJJ, your doing wonders with the powershot.

Cheers

[Phil]

great stuff jjj getting some nice shots well done. Good to have you back.
Phil

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

I can't wait to use the GStar again, get some proper imaging done. I've finally worked out how to do colour imaging with it, using the RGB filters. That was a long trial and error process.
But this is pretty good fun in the mean time.
Thanks for taking the time to look.

[Bassnut (Fred)]

M42 has a very wide dynamic range, you wont get any nebulae at all with faster exposures. A few minuites at least are required to see the beauty of M42 (mixed with fast exposures to stop core burnout). Even manual guiding on a dob with exposures of a few minuites will do wonders for this object.

[Octane (Humayun)]

Jeanette,

What F/-ratio were you shooting at? That's impressive considering it's a point-and-shoot camera!

Regards,
Humayun

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

I think it was f3.5, or maybe f2.7.
Can't be sure because I've deleted all the original pics and only kept the finished image.
If I wanted to be really serious, I'd put the camera on the Barn door and take advantage of the Powershots 15 second exposures. I'll save that for Astrofest though.

[hickny (Peter)]

After viewing M42 for the first time last week it has become my favourite DSO.

Your image is GREAT.

Do you have an automatic feature that enables multiple exposures or do you have to manually depress the shutter button for each exposure?

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Peter, I press the shutter manually for each exposure. That is why I use the timer function so I don't get an vibration.
There is a multiple exposure function built in to the camera but I haven't bothered to learn how to use it. Maybe I should eh?