Orion Nebula M42

Ive had this itch for several years to get into astro photography, but my attempts have been a dismal failure for many reasons, not least faffing around in the cold for hours trying to do polar alignments and locating objects to photograph. So I called a halt to my attempts a couple of years ago.

 

But the urge didn't go, and this week I bought one of these all-in-one astro telescope thingies. It's designed for beginners, and I suspect also idiots like me. It arrived on Thursday and amazingly the following evening was clear skies, so I gave it a go.

 

A full moon rather inhibited light gathering of the distant nebulae, but I did manage to capture an hours worth of Orion images. Then followed it with my feeble attempts to process the FITS raw file in Siril and Photoshop.

 

While this image has many warts and I am sure real astro photographers will grimace while looking at it, for me, it was the first time I had ever managed to capture an astro image in a way that I had intended. If I can work the telescope and produce this then it truly is idiot proof!

 

Hope my Flickr pals are all well, prospering and happy.

 

Joe

 

Done