Ving - As an emission nebula, most of what you see is radiated from the nebula – although parts of it are also reflected…dark gas lanes (some say dark nebulae) separate de Mairan’s from the main area – as for the shape and dark areas in the mouth, as far as I know, simply turbulent clouds of gas and dust…
Nice Image with the Pentax. Would you believe that this is the first Pentax Astro image I have seen!
It appears even bluer than the Canon. From what is said on the image this is a single shot, no? Have you tried stacking several?
I had another go at the original image (see attached).
See what you can miss if you over process..! I thought it was grainy, but then rubbed my eyes and looked again!
Cranked the saturation level and tweaked the histogram and came up with this...lol...
Astrojase
Yes it is amazing what these cameras actually record. Last season I did M42 and was using 8 sec (ISO1600) exposures for the trapezium section. Just for fun, I took the 8 sec stack and over-stretched it. Here is the result. Yes drastically overstretched, but the faint stuff has still been recorded with 8 sec exposures. And here is the final image. 11x3min, 4x30sec and 6x8sec http://users.bigpond.net.au/itchysastro/M42web.jpg
I took a few that evening, between 50 seconds and 250 seconds (52, 86, 132 and 250)...= about 520 seconds? ISO 800 to 1600 (experimenting with the camera)
I took a few that evening, between 50 seconds and 250 seconds (52, 86, 132 and 250)...= about 520 seconds? ISO 800 to 1600 (experimenting with the camera)...
Yea, that is better. Not as "clean" as your first post, but much more detail and fainter stuff visible. Not quite as blue either. Stacking really helps. The more the better.
