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Still learning about stacking deep sky imagery. This is a blend of 44 images 90 sec. @ ISO 5000 and 76 images 45 sec. @ ISO 2500. each set stacked in Photoshop using median blend then exposure blended to increase dynamic range, or at least that was the intended result anyway.

Nikon 500mm f/4P ED IF AI-S

Nikon 1.4 teleconverter

A week away from the lunar eclipse now and forecast is for clouds and snow. I'm holding out some hope that could change.

This is a reprocess of my M42/M43/NGC1977 shot from last Saturday night. I wasn't entirely happy with the original process, so I started over. This shot is a labor of love. All told, I'd estimate 20 hours of work went into producing this image.

Taken with a TMB92L, Hutech-modified Canon T3i DSLR, Orion SSAG autoguider and 50mm guidescope, and Celestron AVX mount. Consists of 31 300-second light frames, 25 25-second light frames, and 15 5-second light frames, plus darks, flats, and bias frames. Captured with BackyardEOS, stacked in DeepSkyStacker, and processed in Photoshop.

The Orion Nebula and the Running Man Nebula must be the most imaged nebulas in the night sky. In this project I wanted to get the surrounding dust and gasses that are not normally seen in most wide field Orion Nebula images. To be able to capture the faint dust and the super bright core and everything in-between I took a set of 3 different exposures to create an HDR image. The image required using a masked stretch of 300 iterations to be able to compress all the details into a workable image.

More information can be found at: astrob.in/afonwi/0/

Detail Summary:

Imaged from Gérgal, Spain on the 22 December 2022

Bortle class 4-5

SQM 20.6 - 20.9

WO GT81 385mm Telescope f/4.7

CGX Mount

ASI 2600MC Pro -5C Imaging Camera

Baader Moon & Sky Glow filter

Total imaging time 5 hours:

36x 30s Gain 0 : 18 mins

36x 180s Gain 0 : 1 hour 48 mins

36x 300s Gain 100 : 3 hours

This rather complex nebula region of Orion is quite challenging and I am not able to adequately capture it to my satisfaction so thus another attempt.

Tech Specs: Nikon d7100, Nikkor 180mm f/2.8 @ f/2.8, iso 1100, 195 subs = 240 minutes integrated time. Orion Sirius EQ Mount, PixInsight, Lightroom, Photoshop. Temperature 50F, breezy, sky transparency 7.5/10, Bortle 4.0, Oracle, Arizona.

A recent jpeg capture of this region was not quite as dynamic: www.flickr.com/photos/cloud_spirit/52527360849/in/datepos...

Picture of the Day x 4

After a long break with no chance for astrophotography I finally was able to get some done on the weekend.

This is the Orion Nebula along with the Running Man Nebula. Found in the constellation of Orion, the Orion Nebula is one of the closest major star forming regions to Earth and one of the most frequently photographed deep space objects.

This image is a combination of 5 shots of 3 minutes each.

NGC 1977 in Orion

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Magnitude: +7.0

Apparent size: 10 x 5 arc min.

Diameter: 5.1 light years.

Distance: 1800 light years.

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Image date: 2021-01-10

Exposure: 120 minutes

Field of View: 47.6 x 47.6 arcmin.

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Getting new astro gear always summons the clouds, so it took about six weeks to actually get the 400mm pointed skywards. Had some doubts about using such a long focal length on an unguided star tracker, but even with a very approximate polar alignment I could still reliably get 45s exposures, and Orion is, as always, a merciful target.

1 stack of 50 45s images, Canon 800D at ISO 800, Canon 400mm f5.6 lens wide open, iOptron Skyguider Pro tracker. 100 darks, 350 biases. Processing details at www.astrobin.com/4hi5cx

This view of M42 (Orion Nebula) + Running Man Nebula was taken with Nikon d7100, Nikkor 180mm F/2.8 @ f/5, 55x180s, average iso=1100, cropped, Orion Sirius EQ Mount, sky transparency 8/10, Bortle 4, temperature 42F, humidity 80%, light winds, no moon, Oracle, Arizona, Post Processed in PixInsight, Lightroom, Photoshop.

The multiple exposure (60sec. for the nebula and 30sec.*16lights for the stars), in my opinion, made it possible to better bring out the color in the shadows and highlights. And catch up with the Running Man (NGC 1977) over the Orion Nebula ;-)

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Мультиэкспозиция (60sec. по туманности и 30sec.*16lights по звёздам), по-моему, позволила лучше выявить цвет в тенях и светах. И догнать Бегущего человека (NGC 1977) над туманностью Ориона ;-)

Here's my second attempt into quarantine astrophotography, building on some of the lessons learned from the first experiment on Andromeda earlier this summer. More lessons learned, and more refinement to come as I eventually search for dimmer and more difficult to find objects. This one is shot on a D850, 200-500mm Nikkor at 500mm, 60 x 20s exposures (plus 20 x 20s dark) for a total exposure time of 20 minutes.

The Orion Nebula (also known as Messier 42, M42, or NGC 1976) and the Running Man Nebula (NGC 1973, NGC 1975, and NGC 1977) in the Orion constellation. M42 is located approximately 1,300 light years away and is the closest region of massive star formation to Earth.

Prints: tom-schwabel.pixels.com

Facebook: @tomschwabelphotography

Instagram: @tomschwabelphotography

This is a copyrighted image with all rights reserved. Please don't use this image on websites, blogs, facebook, or other media without my explicit permission. See profile page for information on prints and licensing.

Weather in Northern Ireland remains very unfavourable for astrophotography so I'm grateful for my subscription to Grand Mesa Observatory system 1 scope in Colorado.

Found in the sword of the Orion Constellation, the Orion Nebula is visible to the naked eye. It is only 1,500 light years away from us and thus appears very bright. It is worth checking out with a small telescope or even a pair of binoculars.

Equipment:

Celestron CGEM Mount

Nikkor 500mm f/4 P Ai-s at f/5.6

Sony a7RIII (unmodified)

Altair 60mm Guide scope

GPCAM2 Mono Camera

Acquisition:

Taos, NM: my backyard - Bortle 3

47 x 90" for 1 hr 11min and 17 sec of exposure time.

11 dark frames

15 flats frames

15 bais frames

Guided

Software:

SharpCap

PHD2

DeepSkyStacker

Photoshop

My mount was polar aligned with SharpCap (what an amazing system for aligning). I'm not comfortable using my SCT as my lens yet. My solution is to piggyback my Sony a7RIII and adapted Nikkor 500mm f/4 P Ai-s on a ADM dovetail rail on the top of my optical tube. I used DeepSkyStacker to combine all frames and then processed the TIFF file in Photoshop. I stretched the 32 bit file and used Gradient XT on the image. I then made it a 16 bit file and stretched in level, then curves. I used the color sampler tool and levels to do my best to keep the background space black. I then using my skillset and relied on Astronomy Tools Action Set, and dodging and burning a bit to give the image the finishing touches.

28 sub exposures each f/5.6, ISO 1250, 45sec stacked in DSS and processed in photoshop. Taken with Canon 100-400mm lens @ 400mm, Canon 70D.

Came out better than my last attempt.

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Photographed Jan 08, 2022 from the Alexander Valley, Sonoma County, California.

"Messier 42 (M42), the famous Orion Nebula, is an emission-reflection nebula located in the constellation Orion, the Hunter. With an apparent magnitude of 4.0, the Orion Nebula is one of the brightest nebulae in the sky and is visible to the naked eye. It lies at a distance of 1,344 light years from Earth and is the nearest stellar nursery to Earth.

The Orion Nebula is very easy to find as it is located just below Orion’s Belt, a prominent asterism in the winter sky. The nebula appears as the fuzzy middle star in Orion’s Sword, which is formed by a vertical row of three stars (i.e. two stars and M42) south of Orion’s Belt. The nebula can easily be seen in binoculars and small telescopes. Covering more than a degree of apparent sky, the nebula appears over four times the size of the full Moon.

Small telescopes at higher magnifications will reveal the four brightest stars in the Trapezium Cluster, an open cluster of young, hot, massive stars that were formed within the Orion Nebula. The four stars form a trapezoidal shape and energize the surrounding nebulosity."

For the techies:

Scope: Stellarvue SVX130T w/reducer: 677mm FL, f/5.25

Camera: ASI2600MC 100 gain -10deg cooled

Mount: EQ6R Filters: L-Extreme

Moon Phase: 45% waxing

Lights: 30 @ 10” / 30 @ 30” / 30 @ 90” / 30 @ 180” Total: 2.6 hrs

Darks: MD’s 10”, 30”, 90”, 180”

Flats: 30 @ 4”

Dark Flats: 30 @ 4”

Processed in HOO using A.P.P., Pixinsight, LR & PS .

Located close to the Orion Nebula and usually included in the same frame but not very often given the main stage.

Imaged 17 Dec 2022 on a single night test imaging session after a complete rebuild of the Celestron C11 Edge HD imaging setup.

This is 362 x 60 second subframes totaling 6 hours of integration.

The full details are available on my Astrobin page astrob.in/w1lbb3/0/

Technical summary:

Celestron C11 Edge HD with 0.7 focal reducer.

ZWO ASI2600 MC Pro camera.

Baader Moon and Sky Glow filter.

EQ6 R Pro mount.

200mm guide scope.

No flats, no darks only 50 bias frames for calibration.

Edited with PixInsight and Adobe Lightroom Classic.

My first successful astro mosaic! It's a total of 380 minutes of imagery, 11 different panels, so panel integrations average 34 minutes. The Orion, Running Man, Horsehead, and Flame Nebulae area has the most imagery behind it, as well as the Witch Head Nebula.

Imagery was acquired in 2019 and 2020 on 9 different nights from the same location under rural skies (Bortle 3/4). All subs were taken with my Fuji X-T10 and Samyang 135 mm on the iOptron SkyTracker Pro. Each sub is 60 seconds, taken at ISO 1600 with the Samyang 135mm open to f2.

I integrated individual panels using DeepSkyStacker, and used the 'remove light pollution' tool of Astro Pixel Processor to flatten integrations, which had substantial vignetting from being shot at f2. These flattened panels were then mosaiced with Astro Pixel Processor using the process outlined here: www.astropixelprocessor.com/part-3-register-normalize-int.... Curves adjustment, star reduction, and color tweaking were then done with GIMP. This image is downscaled 50%.

It's not a perfect process and the data has issues, but I'm happy with the result. It was fun to explore the less-imaged nebulosity between the Orion and the Witch Head Nebulae, and around Saiph.

I'm sure I'll keep tinkering with this, and I still plan to shoot the entirety of Orion this winter, but this is a nice mosaic in and of itself, so I wanted to post it.

Aug. 2021 update: I've been looking through my astro photos, ramping up for some imaging this fall and winter (hopefully I'll complete this Orion mosaic). I decided this image could use a little lightening.

What a beautiful deep sky object to observe !

M42 is the brightest nebula of the northern hemisphere night-sky and it is always a pleasure to capture it :)

This picture is a single minute exposure (ISO 800) taken with a Canon 600D camera (unmodified sensor) at prime focus of a 8" newtonian.

Technical Datas :

Canon 600D (unmodified sensor) + 200/800 mm Reflector + lxd75 mount

60 seconds at ISO 800

800 mm

F/4

processed with Lightroom + Gimp

Location : Normandy, France

The Great Orion Nebula (Messier 42). We all know it. It’s one of the first targets we point our telescope or camera at before stumbling down the ridiculous rabbit hole that is astrophotography.

One of my main goals in astsophtoogrpahy has been to meticulously create the most detailed and deep image of the Orion Nebula I could manage. A perfect challenging in astrophotography, in my opinion, as Orion is both a delightful and easy target for beginners, and as advanced a target as we might like for revisiting in years to come. Over the past three years or so I’ve accumulated some 150 hours of data on Orion, scattered amidst assorted experiments and attempts in editing (which, up until now, I’ve never finished). Over the past four months I’ve collected the images for this rendition, and spent an embarrassing amount of time learning and experimenting with new (to me) post-processing approaches to arrive at this result. I’m sincerely delighted to share this labor of love with everyone.

Constrictive feedback and discussion are absolutely welcome.

Acquisition Details

Takahashi FSQ-106EDX4, ZWO ASI2600MM Pro, iOptron CEM-40EC

- Jan 22 2022, Jan 26 2022, Feb 4 2022

- Astronomik RGB: 75x30" (37' 30") f/5 -20°C bin 1x1

- Astronomik RGB: 480x10" (1h 20') f/5 -20°C bin 2x2

- Astronomik UV+IR L2: 136x120" (4h 32’) f/5 -20°C bin 1x1

- Astronomik UV+IR L2: 160x30" (1h 20') f/5 -20°C bin 1x1

Celestron RASA-8, ZWO ASI2600MC Pro, iOptron CEM-40EC

- Jan 23 2022, Jan 24 2022, Jan 28 2022

- Color Imaging: 60x5" (5') f/2 -20°C bin 1x1

- Color Imaging: 129x120" (4h 18') f/2 -20°C bin 1x1

Additional Details at AstroBin

www.astrobin.com/kox4bv/

Post-Processing

Source data includes two nights of long and short exposures captured with my Celestron RASA-8 and ZWO ASI2600MC Pro, and numerous nights captured with my Takahashi FSQ-106EDX4 and ZWO ASI2600MM Pro with Astronomik UV/IR L2 and Deep Sky RGB filters. With the Takahashi I captured short and long exposures in luminance and color, along with a separate 4-panel mosaic in LRGB (binned color) which I used for stars and fine detail in highlights. I discarded sub-par data from sessions liberally. A master luminance image was created with data combined from both telescopes (blended into RASA data for the larger field of view, which was a point of challenge). A master color image was created with the RASA data, which contributed color for nebulae and background. And the four-panel mosaic was prepared and processed separately, ultimately contributing detail in highlights and the stars in the final rendition. And just because, why not—I’ve gone this far—I used my best subset of 5s exposures captured in Hα, last year, for luminance on the Trapezium. (The original is more than 16000 pixels across, and I went out of my way to present fine detail so a large print could end up on my wall, allowing me to appreciate details up close, returning me to these fun and stupidly cold nights whenever I like.) Starless versions were sent out to Adobe Photoshop for final combination and blending. Some normal PixInsight steps, like HDR combination, also ended up being handled, in part, in Adobe Photoshop. PixInsight was used during this process for features such as Local Histogram Equalization.

It’s challenging to outline post-processing details on this one because the workflow ended up looking like the stereotypical insane person’s wall cataloging a crime scene investigation, but I’m delighted to answer any questions someone may have.

This is my third attempt at photographing the Orion Nebula. Over the years I’ve used different star trackers and lenses with different results, and this is by far my best attempt, but I still have a lot to improve upon. I recently purchased a small telescope, the William Optics Zenithstar 61 refactor. That plus the iOptron SkyGuider Pro have worked out quite well, the telescope is small and light enough to work with the lightweight tracker. This is actually heavily cropped from the original framing. The Z61 telescope has a focal length of 360mm, which isn’t enough to really zoom in on the nebula, so I had to crop in significantly. But I did use 2x drizzle upscale resampling with DeepSkyStacker, so the file was 2x resolution from the original 24MP Nikon Z 6 file, so cropping in dramatically wasn’t as bad as it would have been without the upscaling.

The Orion Nebula (M42) is the big one, with Mairan’s Nebula (M43) sort of sticking out the top left side of M42, and then the Running Man Nebula (NGC 1975) is the other nebula in the top part of the frame. Lots of dust clouds are also visible in the background.

This image is a blend of 2 main images, both acquired on different nights. The Orion Nebula is difficult to photograph with one capture because the core of the nebula is easily blown out with the bright stars blocking the view, so two captures with different settings are often used to get a good exposure of the whole scene, with one capture blowing out M42’s core, and another capture to get a good exposure of just M42’s core.

Nikon Z 6 with FTZ lens adapter

William Optics Zenithstar 61 telescope

William Optics Flat61A flattener

iOptron SkyGuider Pro star tracker

Darker exposures for M42 core: 188 x 30 seconds @ ISO 100 — 94 minutes total

Brighter exposures: 84 x 60 seconds @ ISO 3200 — 84 minutes total

The 30s exposures were taken on a night with an almost full moon, so the ISO was much lower because the sky was so bright. The 60s exposures were taken without moonlight and so the signal needed to be boosted dramatically (very high ISO) to get above the noise.

I probably could have used significantly fewer darker exposures for M42’s core, but I captured those images when I was still figuring things out and thought the data might be good enough by itself to create the final image, but there was just way too much noise because I was exposing for the highlights, leaving the nebula and background buried in the electronic noise of the camera.

Both set of captures were stacked in DeepSkyStacker, running on a Windows 10 VM on my MacBook Pro. Then each resulting image was processed in PixInsight for color calibration and stretching, then they were blended in Photoshop, and final edits applied in Photoshop and PixInsight.

Visit my website to learn more about my photos and video tutorials: www.adamwoodworth.com

Canon 7D ii, EF 300 f/4 L, stack of 48 x 1 minute exposures (Starry Sky Stacker), ISO 250, f/4. Tracked with IOptron Skyguider Pro. No calibration frames. Shot from my backyard, Bortle 4-5 skies.

On December 19th 2020, I was outside in southern Brandenburg (Germany) to watch the night sky and take photos of the Orion region. Unfortunately I had to throw away 1/3 of the pictures because the Astrotrac had some tracking problems due to frost and high humidity.

[Canon EOS 600Dfs, Samyang 135 mm f2, f / 2.8, ISO-1600, 53x90 sec., App & Adobe Photoshop CC 2021]

The Running Man Nebula or NGC 1977 is a reflection nebula that is found in the Orion constellation ... almost 1500 lightyears away. It is called the Running Man because the shape looks exactly like that ... ie a man running. It is to the left in this photo ... a purple shape on a field of blue. But in the night sky the Running Man is actually above Orion, but here in this photo I rotated it so that you could see it better.

The Orion Nebula (Messier 42 or NGC 1976) on the right here in this photo is a diffuse nebula just south of Orion's Belt in the constellation of Orion. It is a bright nebulae and is visible to the naked eye in the night sky ... but only as a faint fuzzy smudge unless you have the help of a telescope.

This image is composed of only 11 images stacked and processed in PixInsight and Photoshop. With more images there would be much more detail visible.

No praise is too high for the Great Orion Nebula, one of the grandest beauties of the winter night sky. The beautiful luminous gas cloud region, the Orion Nebula where stars are born, lies at the bottom right in this picture and immediately next to it lies a bluish region of clouds known by the name Running Man nebula. The Horsehead Nebula lies on the top left corner.

Captured from Badlands National Park.

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The Great Nebula in Orion (M42) and the Running Man Nebula (NGC 1977).

The Orion Nebula (Messier 42, M42, or NGC 1976) is a diffuse nebula situated in the Milky Way Galaxy, south of Orion's Belt in the constellation of Orion. M42 is located 1344 light-years away, and is the closest region of massive star formation to Earth. The M42 nebula is estimated to be 24 light-years across. It has a mass of about 2000 times the mass of the Sun.

About this image:

This is really a "work in progress" test image, and is compiled from a combination of "One Shot Color" (OSC) DSLR RGB image data, and Hydrogen-Alpha (Ha), Oxygen III (OIII), and Sulphur II (SII) Narrowband image data (collected at several Star Parties and Astronomy weekends in the past year).

Even though the Orion Nebula is probably the first Deep Sky Object that every Astrophotographer images, it is actually a tricky nebula to photograph and process due to its wide high dynamic range of bright and faint nebulosity.

Narrowband spectral wavelengths of the light in this image:

Hydrogen-Alpha - 656.3nm

Oxygen-III - 500.7nm

Sulfur-II - 672.4nm

Visible light spectrum:

400nm - 700nm

Pre-Processing and Linear workflow in PixInsight

and FITS Liberator, and finished in Photoshop.

Astrometry Info:

Annotated Sky Chart for this image.

Center RA, Dec: 83.756, -5.378

Center RA, hms: 05h 35m 01.327s

Center Dec, dms: -05° 22' 42.324"

Size: 1.7 x 1.26 deg

Radius: 1.059 deg

Pixel scale: 3.83 arcsec/pixel

Orientation: Up is 81.6 degrees E of N

View this image in the World Wide Telescope.

Flickr Explore:

Explore-2017-01-13

Martin

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My first M42 of the new winter season. Taken between midnight and 1am overnight on 27th/28th October.

Taken with a 70mm William Optics refractor and Canon 1100D on an EQ5 Pro mount on a permanent pier.

ISO-1600 for 30 seconds. 110 images stacked with 57 darks using Deep Sky Stacker. Image processed using Photoshop CS2 with Astronomy Tools plus final tweaks in Lightroom

Thought I would piggy back a second camera and lens to my Telescope last night. So glad I did. Canon 5DSR and 70-200mmL @ 200mm. 192 x 30 sec exposures pointing at Orion whilst my main scope was shooting the Horsehead and Flame Nebula. This wider perspective has managed to capture top right -The great Orion nebula and running man nebula.In the centre region we have the horsehead and flame nebula, and bottom left is Casper the friendly ghost nebula. Pretty damn happy with this. My only gripe was silly user error and for some reason my cam was set to small jpeg and not raw capture.

After a bit of a break I have started to play with imaging Deep Sky Objects again. This is a stack of images taken with a 200mm lens rather than a telescope. It shows the stars that make the belt of Orion and four of the Nebula, The orion nebula, running man nebula, flame nebula and horse head nebula. Taken from the back garden, bortle class 5, 120 second light frames stacked in DSS and processed in photoshop. It still amazes me that you can see this from your back garden

A partially successful experiment to try and get a good focal length to capture both nebulae in one shot without forking out for another scope. The 127 Mak, with its 1500mm focal length, can't fit both nebulae in the frame, and using a 300mm or 400mm lens makes the objects too small. So for this shot the guidescope was used as a telescope and the telescope as a guidescope. The Orion Mini Guidescope was used with a x2 Barlow and attached to the DSLR which was piggybacked on the telescope. The guide camera was put on the 127 Mak in a not very successful attempt to guide the DSLR (1500mm combined with a tiny sensor makes finding guide stars in the frame almost impossible). The resulting focal length is about 800mm at an agonising f16. It sort of worked but because M42 is so much brighter than NGC 1973/5/7 it gets a bit overexposed while NGC 1973/5/7 still needs much more exposure. I used a little exposure blending to bring out a little more of the Running Man Nebula. I'm glad this much came out but to do it properly a wider field scope is needed as the optics on the Mini Guidescope are ok for guiding but not much else. Blending two exposures might also help. Still, it was a fun experiment.

40 x 30 second exposures at 800mm f16 - 400 ISO (20 minutes)

22 x dark frames

9 x flat frames

21 x bias/offset frames (subtracted from flat frames only)

Captured with APT

Guided with PHD2

Processed in Nebulosity and Photoshop

Equipment:

Skywatcher EQ5 Mount

Orion 50mm Mini Guide Scope

ZWO ASI120 MC imaging and guiding camera

Canon 700D DSLR

Winter imaging is not complete until you image the Orion and Running Man nebula found in the constellation Orion. This is probably one of the most photographed areas in the winter sky. Objects in this view include M42 (Orion Nebula), M43 (de Mairan’s Nebula), NGC 1977 (The Running Man Nebula), NGC 1975 and NGC 1973.

Tech Specs: Williams Optics Redcat, Sky-Watcher EQ6R-Pro mount, ZWO ASI2600MC-P camera, Optolong L-eNhance 2" filter, 36 x 300 seconds at -20C with darks from the library and flats taken the next morning, guided using a ZWO 30mm f/4 mini guide scope and ZWO 120 Mini. Captured using ZWO AAP and processed using PixInsight. Autofocus using the ProAstroGear Black-CAT and ZWO EAF. Image date: January 26, 2022. Location: The Dark Side Observatory, Weatherly, PA, USA (Bortle Class 4).

I was forced to exposure for only 30 seconds because I left my intervalometer home. This 126x30s processed image (Pixinsight and PS CS 6.0) @ iso 1600, Nikkor 180mm ED f/2.8 @ f/2.8, Nikon d7100 was taken on the morning of 9 Oct 18 from Vail, Arizona. Moonless clear skies with excellent transparency resulted in a sharp crisp image. Using AstroTrac x320 unguided mount.

Compare to earlier work:

www.flickr.com/photos/79387036@N07/23630888071/in/album-7...

www.flickr.com/photos/79387036@N07/26461040123/in/album-7...

www.flickr.com/photos/79387036@N07/25891495460/in/album-7...

This was the first time I'd tried shooting an astronomical object from my back yard in Bend, OR. We're in a neighborhood that has street lights, houses, and a nearby downtown. So I wasn't expecting much when I targeted M42 and its surroundings given all that light pollution. But I was pleasantly surprised.

This was shot with a 90mm f/6 triplet refractor fitted with a field flattener and mounted on an Orion Siriuis EQ-G mount, which was guided with a ZWO ASI120mm Mini Autoguider. I used a modified Canon 6D; no external dual-band or narrowband filter was used. It is only 78 minutes of exposure time (26x180s), yet still revealed a ton of detail. I did take some 10-second exposures to mask into the blown-out core of M42 to reveal the Trapezium stars, but have not yet processed them.

I have acquired another 102 minutes of exposure, which I will add to the data in this image. That should provide a less noisy final composite and bring out even more detail and color.

Winter imaging is not complete until you image the Orion and Running Man nebula found in the constellation Orion. This is probably one of the most photographed nebula in the sky. Objects in this view include M42 (Orion Nebula), M43 (de Mairan’s Nebula), NGC 1977 (The Running Man Nebula), NGC 1975 and NGC 1973.

Tech Specs: Sky-Watcher Esprit 120mm ED Triplet APO Refractor, Canon 6D stock camera, 98 minutes total integration time with mixed exposure at ISO 3200. Image Date: January 11 and 28, 2019. Location: The Dark Side Observatory in Weatherly, PA, USA.

An HDR version of M42 Orion Nebula and The Running Man Nebula.

Imaged from my home in Gergal, Spain in November 2024.

This was to test the performance of a new iOptron CEM 26EC portable mount for my William Optics GT81 telescope. The ASI 1600MC Pro Cool camera was on loan from the Los Coloraos complex while I wait for a new mono image rig to be assembled. The images were taken without any filters at all.

I also took some narrow band data but after experimenting with the data, I decided I preferred the natural colours of the nebula.

Thank you for taking a look

My redo of M42 with the new Optolong L-Extreme filter.

- 20x300s Light Frames

- Integrated with Darks, Flats and Bias Frames

- Explore Scientific ED80 CF

- Skywatcher EQ-6 R Pro

- ZWO ASI294MC Pro

- ZWO ASI120MM (guiding)

- ZWO ASIAIR Pro

- Optolong L-Extreme Filter

- Stacked with DSS and edited in Adobe Photoshop

Captured last night in the desert of Arizona. The three stars across the top are Orion’s Belt, and from left to right the names of the stars are Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka. To the left of Alnitak is the Flame Nebula (NGC 2024), and below Alnitak is the fainter Horsehead Nebula (LDN 1630). You can also just make out NGC 2023, a small nebula to the left of the Horsehead Nebula. In the bottom of the frame is the bright Orion Nebula (M42) with the smaller Running Man Nebula (M43) just above it. There are other fainter dust lanes and gas clouds scattered here and there.

Nikon Z 7, FTZ lens adapter and NIKKOR 70-200mm f/4 lens @ 200mm, f/5.6, ISO 800. Stack of 30 exposures at 1 minute each. I used an iOptron SkyGuider Pro star tracker. The images were prepared in Lightroom, stacked in Starry Sky Stacker (Mac), and edited in Photoshop for color correction and to bring out the details.

Visit my website to learn more about my photos and video tutorials: www.adamwoodworth.com

Just north of the Great Nebula in Orion is this region of gas and dust known as The Running Man Nebula. To see it properly in this picture, tilt your head by 90°. Lost of dust... soooo much dust, and it's scattering light from hot, blue B-class stars. Thus, the blues that fill the center of this image. That violet area? I'm not sure - maybe a combination of blue from reflection nebulae and red from emission nebulae?

This is a stack of 35 75s exposures from a Celestron Edge HD 9.25" scope at f/2.3 with Hyperstar and an Atik 314L+ color CCD. Preprocessing in Nebulosity; stacking and initial processing in PixInsight; final touches in PS CS 5.1.

The image scale is 2.5" per pixel. J2000 coordinates of the center are:

RA 5h 35m 21.8s

DEC -4° 48' 6"

I'm quite fond of Open Cluster NGC 1981 - it was the first object that I pointed a GOTO telescope at. Had been reading about it just beforehand and thought the characteristic "little donkey" shape would be easy to confirm - its the collection of stars at the top right.

The Running Man nebula is a mix of blue reflection nebula from dust and red fluorescing hydrogen gas lit by the intense UV light of the stars around it.

This is just a detail from the previous image so I wont repost the technical card.

I wanted to bring out some of the dust and gas clouds around the bright nebulae in Orion - so I’ve processed this to highlight the background.

117 x 45 second exposures

Modified Canon 80D with IDAS LPS D1 filter, ISO200.

Sigma 135mm f1.8 @ f2

StarAdventurer Pro tracking mount

PoleMaster polar alignment

Focused with Backyard EOS FWHM routine

ZWO mini-guider/ASI120mm/ASIair guiding - RMS error 1.34 arcsec (guiding in RA only)

Image scale 5.7 arcsec/pixel

Light pollution measured at 20.1 magnitude/arcsec2

100 dark frames

100 flat frames (1/100s electroluminescent panel)

100 bias frames

Processed in PixInsight 1.8.8

After my first test shot with little exposure time under rather unfavourable conditions already hinted at the famous Horsehead nebula, I tried this again, this time for real. A wonderfully clear night, no moon, and only one target...

I was able to acquire 2 h 8 min in 256 useful subs before my camera's batteries ran out and I got cold...

But I was amply rewarded! This image taken at 300 mm focal length with the TAIR-3S just exactly fits all the famous objects, from the Flame nebula (bottom left) to Orion's bright belt star Alnitak, and of course the Horsehead nebula, to the Running Man nebula and the Great Orion nebula M42 on the top right. I also like the soft but numerous spikes from the slightly stopped-down lens on the brighter stars.

Maybe I'll find some time to compose a HDR image some time, where the core of M42 isn't burnt out and the Trapezium stars are visible, but seeing has to be quite good for this and M42 season is nearing its end here...

EXIF:

Lens: TAIR-3S (300 mm f/4.5) @ f/5.6

Camera: Samsung NX30, mirrorless APS-C, unmodified

Acquisition: 256x 30 s @ISO3200; total 2 h 8 min

Mount: Skywatcher Star Adventurer, unguided, manual dithering

Stacking: Deep Sky Stacker

Processing: fitswork, ImageJ, Aurora HDR 2018

2x2 binning was performed during processing, and a pseudo-luminance channel was created by summing up all three colour channels.

and the Running Man Nebula

The last clear nights I've tried a bit in the astrophotography here in my garden in the South Eifel / Germany. I have often photographed the Orion Nebula in the past and have always been very happy that this is possible with my camera. But to get a better result, I do not do as I did then only one shot, today I make as many as possible to combine them in a single picture.

I have tracked with the Vixen Polarie (Star Tracker), reworked with Deep Sky Stacker and Lightroom.

Details:

OMD E-M5 and 40-150mm F2.8 + MC-14, mounted on Vixen Polarie

389 Lightframes each 15sec....f4...ISO 3200...210mm

and a few Darks and Bias.

(With the correct implementation of the colors of the mist I have struggled hard)

This area of Orion is rich with nebulous gems. From the Horsehead and Flame nebulas in the center to M78 and a swath of Barnard's Loop on their left and the Orion and Running Man nebulas at lower right, it's an astronomical treasure chest. The old and unmodified Fujifilm X-T10 crop sensor mirrorless camera picks up the red H-alpha nebulosity remarkably well.

This is a stack of eighty-two tracked 80s exposures with the Samyang 135mm f/2 lens at f/2, ISO 1600, for a total of 1hr 49min exposure. No darks, flats or bias frames were taken. The Orion nebula is blown out; next time I will take some shorter exposures so I can do an HDR blend to record more of the core detail of that nebula.

Exposures were stacked in DSS and processed in Astro Pixel Processor and Photoshop CC. Photographed from Bend, Oregon in Bortle 3 skies.

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Taken from Oxfordshire, UK with a William Optics 70mm refractor, Canon 1100D with Sky Tech Light Pollution clip filter, on an EQ 5 Pro mount.

Outer region:

ISO-800 for 90 seconds

108 images stacked in Deep Sky Stacker, then processed in Photoshop CS2

Core region:

ISO-800 for 10 seconds, 13 images stacked using Deep Sky Stacker and processed in Photoshop CS2.

I processed 4 times to preserve detail in certain areas then blended them together using layer masks.

Merged image processed in Lightroom and Fast Stone Image Viewer

I have imaged Orion's Sword with Messier 42 the Orion Nebula with the same telescope and camera set up every year for the past four years. This image is the result of pulling together all of my data from 2018, 2019 and 2020. I didn't include 2017's data because it was shot through thin cloud and the images weren't the best quality.

Equipment:

William Optics 70mm refractor, Canon 1100D with CLS light pollution clip filter fitted on an EQ5 Pro mount which was mounted on a permanent pier. The mount was tracking but no guiding was used.

7th December 2018:

Outer : 52 x 90 seconds at ISO-800 + 30 darks

Core region: 13 x 10 seconds at ISO-800 + 25 darks

1st December 2019:

Outer: 29 x 120 seconds at ISO-1600 + 25 darks

Core: 29 x 15 seconds at ISO-1600 + 30 darks

22nd November 2020:

Outer region: 37 x 90 seconds at ISO-1600 + 25 darks

Core region: 40 x 30 seconds at ISO-1600 + 15 darks

All of the frames were analysed in Deep Sky Stacker and only the best frames were included in the stack.

The outer region was a total of 103 lights + 70 darks with a total exposure time of 2 hours 47 minutes

The core region was a total of 134 lights + 45 darks, with a total exposure time of 42minutes 30 seconds

After stacking the two images were processed separately in Photoshop CS2 with the RC Astrotools, AstroFlat Pro and Hasta la Vista Green plugins in addition to manual levels and curves adjustments. The core region was processed twice to preserve detail around the trapezium and then the final three images were blended together using a layer mask in Photoshop. The blended image was then processed further in Lightroom and Fast Stone Image Viewer.

There is definitely more detail in the outer nebula regions now that I've added all of this data together. I never get bored of this object!

Picture saved with settings embedded.

Most people are familiar with the Orion Nebula, but I decided to focus on a nearby, often overlooked reflection nebula, The Running Man Nebula. The intense blue comes from the galactic dust reflecting the light of the brightest star in the centre of the image. The 'running man' is pink due to the hydrogen gases being ionized by the ultraviolet energy. Hydrogen-alpha is usually red but the hydrogen-beta's blue colour turns it pink. I used five different filters to capture this colourful object. They were, red, green, blue and also hydrogen-alpha and hydrogen-beta filters. The turbulent gases and dust in the upper right of the image separates the running man from the famous Orion Nebula only a half of a degree away.

4 hours of data taken with the Ceravolo300mm astrograph at f/9 and CCD camera SBIG STX 16803.

The Great Orion Nebula (M42) is a true showpiece in the night sky. It is easily visible to the naked eye as a fuzzy patch in the sword of Orion, and is a beautiful sight in telescopes of all sizes. It lies fairly close to our part of the galaxy, lying some 1500 light years distant. The center portion contains a tight grouping of stars called the Trapezium. M43 lies just above the Trapezium region, and another bright reflection nebula called The Running Man Nebula is near the top of this frame.

This image is a blend of RGB data with Hydrogen-Alpha data. The RGB was blended with the H-alpha to form an artificial luminance layer, and the H-alpha was blended into the red channel of the colour layer.

Takahashi Sky 90 at f/4.5

SBIG STL-4020M (self-guided)

Takahashi EM-200

Hutech LPS filter

H-Alpha: 2h20m (20 minute subexposures)

RGB: 25m, 35m, 10m (5 minute subexposures)

Processed with Maxim/DL and Photoshop CS3

Noel Carboni's Astronomy Tools

The H-Alpha data by itself is here.