Core of the Great Orion Nebula

How beautiful are these colours! This was my first time imaging Orion up close at 1,645 mm. I wanted to capture Orion as it is, without nuking it with a HDR or over sharpening - not my thing. Without a HDR this means processing is a little challenging balancing the shadows and highlights.

 

Turns out Murphy's Law was in full swing the night of capture. Un-forecasted clouds bombarded my session, making my scope lose guide stars and drifting all over the place. On top of other issues like light leaks and star bloating, I called it quits after 2 hours into the night and walked away with only 42 minutes of below average data. I was ready to throw it all out and start again, but I stacked it anyway and was pleasantly surprised how it came out. So there you have it, my M42 image, rough edges and all.

 

Acquisition:

- Celestron C9.25 EdgeHD at f/7

- SkyWatcher EQ6-R Pro

- ZWO ASI294MC Pro, AAP, OAG (w/ 224MC)

- ZWO UV/IR Cut

- 21*120s (42 mins), Gain 120, -10 C

 

Processing:

- Stacked in DSS w/ calibration frames

- Photoshop: levels, curves, selective high pass filtering and noise reduction, camera raw lighting adjustments, saturation and colour balancing.

The real challenge here was balancing the dynamic range, I wanted to show off the incredibly bright and overwhelming core but also reveal some of the outer darker limbs. You have to be really gentle with your curve stretches and slowly caress the shadows out.

 

I post my astrophotography most frequently on my IG, @bradmichelbach.

Done