m42combine_small

M42 - Messier 42. This is about as good as I can PP with my current astro imaging skill set. It's completely different to post process on normal terrestrial images. Details - image taken with Lightbuckets (www.lightbuckets.com) LSB002 widefield scope. Combination of:

 

6 x 120 sec L (Luminance) subs

4 x 120 sec R (Red) subs

4 x 120 sec G (Green) subs

4 x 120 sec B (Blue) subs

 

stacked in Maxim DL 5 (not a cheap program!). Processed using the digital development filter and some screen stretch.

 

I had some extra subs from a different night for the core section:

 

6 x 6 sec L (Luminance) subs

4 x 6 sec R (Red) subs

4 x 6 sec G (Green) subs

4 x 6 sec B (Blue) subs

 

I had some H alpha subs as well but decided not to include them. Both shots manually combined in Photoshop (framing was slightly out between both shots so I had to manually align them in Photoshop). Some curves and levels done too, with some sharpening and very slight noise reduction using Neat Image Pro + on a duplicate layer set to 10% opacity so as to not smoothen things out too much.

 

Done