The Orion Nebula

smr

smr

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Joel
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Hi all,

Last night, after months of studying Astrophotography and specifically Deep Sky Object (DSO) Photography I took my first photograph of Messier 42, also known as the Orion Nebula. It is 1,344 light years from Earth and is estimated to be 24 light years across. An estimated 1,000 stars are being born here. You can also see the Running Man on the left of the image. It's a total of 50 minutes worth of exposure time and took 8 hours to process.

Orion Nebula by Joel Spencer, on Flickr
 
I always admire work like this. The patience and skill is to be applauded. Well done (y)
 
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So, let's have the technical details please, camera, telescope, mount, driven, tracked etc
And when you say 8 hrs to process, do you mean stacking s/w took 8 hrs or were you at the computer 8 hrs.
Although I do agree it's a really nice shot and I only wish I had the same ability/skill/ patience.
One last thought it's been very cold in the UK this week so we're you outside for the whole time or did you drive the camera remotely.
Matt
 
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It's images and the facts which go with them, do give me some serious headaches:confused:.................fantastic image and I do admire your patience to achieve this.
 
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Technical details please! For 50 min of data I would have thought there'd be more detail to be pulled out. Saying that takes nothing away from your shot btw. If I'd got that at a first attempt I'd have been over the moon :)
 
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I think this is a great start, there is a lot more to be captured in this nebula. There are parts which are possibly a tad over exposed, but a great start - i look forward to seeing more of your work :)
 
Thanks all.

The image was taken with my unmodded Canon 80D, 55-250 STM lens at 250mm unguided on a Star Adventurer and Manfrotto CXPro055 Tripod, intervalometer and processed using Deep Sky Stacker and then Photoshop CS6. There was around 53 minutes of light frames, no darks, bias or flats. It took me around 8 hours to process in Photoshop, DSS didn't take too long to stack. It was setup in my garden and I was outside some of the time checking some of the frames whilst also hopping in to my conservatory.
 
smr said:
Thanks all.

The image was taken with my unmodded Canon 80D, 55-250 STM lens at 250mm unguided on a Star Adventurer and Manfrotto CXPro055 Tripod, intervalometer and processed using Deep Sky Stacker and then Photoshop CS6. There was around 53 minutes of light frames, no darks, bias or flats. It took me around 8 hours to process in Photoshop, DSS didn't take too long to stack. It was setup in my garden and I was outside some of the time checking some of the frames whilst also hopping in to my conservatory.
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Thanks for those details, very interesting.
Did you move the camera during the 53 minutes as I would have thought the stars would have moved out of the field of view of the lens.
 
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MatBin said:
Thanks for those details, very interesting.
Did you move the camera during the 53 minutes as I would have thought the stars would have moved out of the field of view of the lens.
Click to expand...

That's what the Star Adventurer is for. It's a tracking head that fits on a normal tripod. When Joel said 'unguided' he just meant there wasn't anything else done to increase the tracking accuracy.

This one www.flickr.com/photos/fjjb/31658656784 (I'm putting the link not the image as it's not my thread to hijack) was taken with an unmodded Canon 550D, Sigma 160-600C at 600mm, just over 11 min total time. Admittedly this was integrated (stacked) in a more specialist software package, not DSS, but this is why I said Joel may have more detail he can pull out of his image. The processing bit isn't easy!
 
Jannyfox said:
That's what the Star Adventurer is for. It's a tracking head that fits on a normal tripod. When Joel said 'unguided' he just meant there wasn't anything else done to increase the tracking accuracy.

This one www.flickr.com/photos/fjjb/31658656784 (I'm putting the link not the image as it's not my thread to hijack) was taken with an unmodded Canon 550D, Sigma 160-600C at 600mm, just over 11 min total time. Admittedly this was integrated (stacked) in a more specialist software package, not DSS, but this is why I said Joel may have more detail he can pull out of his image. The processing bit isn't easy!
Click to expand...
Thanks.
I have a driven mount on my scopes tripod which is unguided and I was intrigued to think there was no drive associated with a 53 minute photo session, unless it was the Pole star :)
 
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