Images of the orion nebula.

Hi All,
As we were up on the observing hill on saturday night, I had to take advantage of the dark sky we had that night, SO I chanced my arm at getting some images of the orion nebula.


homepage.eircom.net/~sac/graphics/deepsk..._img_0003_smalla.jpg


homepage.eircom.net/~sac/graphics/deepsky/m42_img_0029d.jpg

Both were taken with a 12"LX200 and a Canon 300D at prime focus, the first image had a 0.63 focal reducer right at the back of the tube, with the camera about 6 inches away from that.
The second image had the focal reducer about 4 inches away from the tube with the camera about 2 inches away from that, the differance in the size of the field of view is dramatic.
The tracking was nearly correct, each is about 2 minutes in exposure, I tried taking longer pics, but drive errors were too obvious, and been in altaz mode didnt help either. I never got around to programmed the PEC in the drive, I must do that some day.
I didnt use any filter, fpcusing was done by eye, I didnt use a laptop for image acquisition and processing was done in photoshop.

I'm surprised anything came out as the wind was stong and gusting, but the mount was very steady, some of you know how heavy this scope is.

One thing I'll do diffently next time is take a short exposure to bring out the intricate detail around the trapezium.

Dave - these are very impressive images - as good as I've seen, even in the mags.

Do you use darks, flats or bias frames at all? If not, I'm even more impressed!

I saw a technique recently for bringing out the Trapezium, or at least avoiding it burning out the centre of the nebula. It involved three different length exposures and use Photoshop. Now, if only I can find the damned web site. But, no doubt, you're a dab hand anyway!

Once again, nice images. Wish I could take similar - someday...

Cheers

Dave

Thanks Dave.
I didnt use dark/flat or bias frames, the sky in that direction was very dark that night. I did use quite abit of photoshop processing to get them to this stage.
I find that the camera produces little noise at 2 minutes and there seem to be no noticable hot pixels, so for this image it didn't really need a dark frame,
I also find that the camera chip is fairly evenly bright across its length so I didnt bother with a flat frame, you got me on the bias frame?

I tried bringing out the trapezium but could not do it in a fashion that makes them look natural, maybe someone here can.
I never noticed the faint grey prongs coming out on the left hand side before, you can see them better if you turn up the brightness and contrast on your monitor up to full, but I think the images are best viewed with the brightness at half and the contrast up full.

Nice work Dave. I look forward to clear skies and another attempt at M42. I think a range of exposures to capture the individual clouds and stars, and usage of masking in post-processing will bring out the best of everything. The nebulae combined with clusters are the biggest test of the art.

Those are superb image Dave! I'm really impressed!
When you said you used spacers, were they between the camera and the focal reducer or the focal reducer and the scope?

usage of masking in post-processing will bring out the best of everything.

Exactly, thats what it comes down to, using masks is the differance between a good image and a great one.