My M42 Imaging Project.

Hi all,

It’s great to be out under the stars again. Isn’t terrible when life gets in the way of what you love doing; for me there is nothing better or more relaxing then being out under the stars imaging the night sky.

I’ve set myself a goal of finishing two targets before the night’s start to get brighter. M42 the Orion nebula and M1 the crab nebula.
I got off to go good start with M42; it was clear for the whole night witch does not happen that often.

I managed to get all the H-alpha data for this image in one night. Over the next few months I would like to add some luminance and RGB data.

Equipment used was a Williams Optics 110mm scope with a 4meg CCD on an AP1200 mount. The images where aligned and dark subtracted in images plus and the Processing was done in Photoshop.
Hope you like the results so far. Please click on the image to enlarge.

www.webtreatz.com/gallery/displayimage.php?pos=-139

Clear Skies,
Carl.

Love it Carl, give me black & white images every day, or H-Alpha in this case, the detail is amazing.

Out of curiosity, is that the alien queen looking at us just to the left of centre?

Paul

Unreal image, some detail there I've never noticed before,
Defo the Alien Queen there left of center
The bottom center below the main nebula almost looks like a sea scape.

That's an incredible shot for one night's data Carl I'm looking forward to the finished article, hopefully this winter will be kind to you !

Keith.

Thanks for the comments lads; photo shop is a great tool when it comes to pulling out every pixel from an image. The core was done from two different sub exposures form one minute to five minute exposures. It’s the only way to stop the core from being blown out.

Carl.

Awesome work! I'd no idea there was this level of complexity and detail to the nebula.