M42 at Prime Focus Went back and tried again for M42, this time using a Meade 8" SCT as my 'camera lens'. This shot is an HDR composite made from 3 individual 'stacks' of shots (processed using DeepSkyStacker), then post processed in Photoshop CS4 and then Photomatix, to try to mitigate the very high dynamic range of M42 4 x 6 min @ ISO 800 w/ f6.3 focal reducer 21 x 3 min @ ISO 800 w/ f6.3 focal reducer 5 x 1 min @ ISO 800 w/ f6.3 focal reducer 8 x 20 sec @ ISO 800 w/ f6.3 focal reducer 11 x 10 sec @ ISO 800 w/ f6.3 focal reducer There was additional post processing applied using Irfanview and Photoshop CS4 to the final HDR output. I am still learning about the post processing tricks, having gotten a lot of help form some friends on various forums. I may update this image in the future if I get another version I like more, but this one is not too bad for a beginner like me :o)
So this is a set of data I took earlier this year. I was having some issues with my remote setup at the time and didn't like some aspects of how things were working and so I went off on a troubleshooting sidetrack and never got back to this. Eventually I kinda forgot I had taken the data at all. As it turned out, even with some issues the the data was good enough to make a decent image, although I think it could have benefitted from more subframes. As it is, I ended up with about 8 and 1/2 hours worth of frames, mostly in narrowband, with a typically small stack of RGB data to add back in natural color stars. This object is reasonably bright, and does have signal in all 3 narrowband wavelengths that are typically used. As is often the case, the Hα signal is the strongest, with the OIII and SII signals being noticeably weaker. I would have taken a little more data in SII and OIII to compensate a bit had I not interrupted my data collection on this. IC410, as it is otherwise known, is a nebula in the constellation Auriga, and is located approximately 12,000 light years away from Earth. A number of newborn stars have been detected in this relatively energetic star forming region. The namesake tadpoles can be seen in the just left of center of the image, 'swimming' towards the center of the frame :) Equipment: ZWO ASI1600MM-C Camera @ -15C and Gain:200 Offset:50 Software Bisque MyT Mount Stellarvue SVQ100 Astrograph Refractor, 580mm @ f/5.8 Innovations Foresight ONAG Software: Pixinsight Commercial Version 1.8 Lightroom CC Photoshop CC Innovations Foresight SkyGuard Software Bisque TheSkyX Light Frames: Ha: 28 x 360 secs ( 2 hrs 48 mins) OIII: 26 x 360 secs 2 hrs 36 mins) SII: 28 x 360 secs (2 hrs 48 mins) Red: 12 x 30 secs (6 mins) Green: 10 x 30 secs (5 mins) Blue: 10 x 30 secs (5 mins) 8 hrs 28 mins total Dark Frames: 10 x 60 secs, RGB (10 mins) 10 x 360 secs (1 hr)
A pilgrim waystation dating from the 1300s, right next to our hotel. The Rome skyline was an interesting mix of the old and the new, usually all intermixed together.
