My First M42

jArgHA

I have posted this also on another UK based forum so apologies if this breaks any cross-forum rules:

I recently obtained a second hand SkyWatcher ED80 DS Pro and got a chance to give it first light about 2 weeks ago. I have been dabbling with my old DSLR (an unmodified Canon 450D) and my Celestron 8" SCT up to now but never got around to taking any flat frames or dark frames until I started using the 80mm refractor.

I captured about 90 minutes of 3.5 minute subs (plus darks and flats) on M42 in my first attempt at this target. I took 10 x 30s exposures, and 10x10s exposures also in case I managed to use them for the core area.

Over the past week I have gone through a bit of a learning curve with PixInsight (45 free trial), using tutorials from Harry's Astro Shed (http://harrysastroshed.com/pixinsight/pixinsight video html/pixinsighthomenewbie.html ) to learn some of the basics, David Alrich (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yB0_g58CQBY ) to learn how to do some HDR composition for combining different exposure lengths for the core of M42. I also had a look at Trapped Photo's tutorial but got lost about 1/3 of the way down (http://trappedphotons.com/blog/?p=642 ).

I also found this tutorial from 'Eor Equis' very useful as my final stacked image in DSS kept coming out totally green: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mqHpcbzlBU.

The images below shows what were the final results after 4 different processing attempts, including HDR composition to see more detail in the core. It has been a good learning curve anyhow and I'm looking forward to starting to capture some more targets, it will be hard to avoid shooting M31 on my next clear sky..

allinthehead

That's a lovely M42 well done. I'll look forward to more from you.