M42

Hi all,

Here is my most recent attempt at M42 (just over a week ago) taken from Sugar loaf car park, Co. Wicklow. First clear night in ages.....only took up astrophotography in December and been out 5 times max! Is it just me or is it always this bad, never noticed until I started this hobby! Anyway, this image is a blend of 12 180sec and 18 15sec subs to try and capture the core. Calibrated with darks but no flats (haven't attempted any yet). Bit noisy, need more subs and darks I think. Also, seeing wasn't great which causes the blurry texture, tried unsharp mask but brings out the noise more. Have been messing around with processing on this image (uploaded another on boards.ie) and think I improved the image with this one slightly. Still on a learning curve but improving. Thanks for looking.
Tony



Equipment;

Skywatcher 80ED
NEQ6 pro Synscan
SW 0.85 focal reducer/flattener
Canon 450D modified
ST80 Guidescope
QHY5 Guide Camera
PHD Guiding
Backyard Eos
Stacked and pre-processed in Nebulosity 3
Post-processing in Photoshop CS6

I dont know nothing about astrophotography - other than it's very hard, or maybe aint got the brain smarts for it. Anyway i thing its very impressive, especially as you say you are new to the dark arts


Declan

hi,
thats a grand image, like you say abit noisy but impressive for such a small scope and the detail and focus is good, makes me want to go out and get some m42 shots,

Fair play to you Tony for dragging all that gear out ! A beautiful image.

Keith.

That's technically excellent Tony, and beautiful as well. Great work.

Mike

Thanks lads, yeah Keith, lot of gear to be lugging about! Beats trying to image from light polluted Dublin though. Now if these clouds would ever @"&$ off!!!