M42, "final" result (above) -- click for larger version
I tried to process this version to enhance the darker dust lane areas, which I think are very interesting. M42, the Orion Nebula, is a great area to view and photograph. It is very difficult to process images of this region, though, because the core area is extremely bright relative to everything else. It's bright enough to activate the color sensors in our eyes, and is often described as having a greenish glow. It looked blue from the back yard last night. Do you suppose that the bright moon might affect the perceived color of M42?
The Orion Nebula (M42) is a stellar nursery. New stars are in the process of forming in this part of the galaxy. There are two types of nebula shown here. The blue reflection nebula is present in NGC 1977, also called the "Running Man Nebula", in the left object. The Orion Nebula has rich red areas of the hydrogen alpha emissions. This is a florescence, where radiation is causing clouds of hydrogen gas to glow.
"Located at a distance of about 1,600 (or perhaps 1,500) light years, the Orion Nebula is the brightest diffuse nebula in the sky, visible to the naked eye, and rewarding in telescopes of every size, from the smallest glasses to the greatest Earth-bound observatories and the Hubble Space Telescope." says SEDS. Robert Gendler has published some good info on M42 and NGC 1977.. Links to more info, APOD, and Hubble from there...
Combination of 20x4 minute exposures and 5x1 minute exposures (85 minutes total exposure). Takahashi TOA 130 (a 5" APO refractor) and Canon EOS D20a.
My current image processing workflow is here. The images from this session feature 69 averaged flat frames median combined, along with 16 dark frames averaged. Temperature ranged from ~51 degrees F at the start of imaging to 42 degrees when I was packing up and doing my last darks. The rest of the images from this night...
Above was a crop of a working version, just for fun!
Orion: Widefield Nebulosity Galore (2007)
Astronomy Pictures: Dick Locke's Astrophoto Gateway page....
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