The Great Orion Nebula - 25.01.2023

M42 The Great Orion Nebula, catalogued as Messier 42 or NGC 1976, it is one of the brightest nebulae in the sky, and one of the nearest star-forming regions to Earth. M42 is located at an approximate distance of 1,350 light years away from Earth and is estimated to be 24 light years across.

 

First DSO light with my new astro camera, Altair Astro’s IMX269C, I captured over an hour or so yesterday evening 25.01.2023. Super results from this sensor, so much dusty detail on show here zoom in

 

Sadly a neighboring security light is more attuned to brightening the sky and everybody else’s property, rather than shining down on the ground where it needs to, so annoyingly some scattered light has encroached into the Running Man at the top of the image which was disappointing, but managed to crop away the worst of it.

 

Equipment

🔭 Altair Astro Astronomy 72 EDF f/6 refractor (Lightwave x1.0 flattener)

📷 Altair Astro IMX269C Hypercam ProTEC

⛰️ SkyWatcher AZ-EQ6 GT

💡 SkyTech LPRO-Max LP filter (but not inconsiderate security lights)😏

🌠 Altair Astro 50mm guidescope - GPCAM 130M. PHD2

 

Technical

Exposures: 60x 90sec lights

Calibration: 50x Dark, 50x Flats and 50x DarkFlats

Gain: 565

Black level: 24

TEC Temp: -3°C

 

Acquisition with SharpCap Pro 4.0

Integration with Astro Pixel Processor

Processed with PixInsight (Blur XTerminator / Noise XTerminator)

Final tweaks with Photoshop 2023

Done