I’m excited to have captured my first Orion Nebula, and it was quite unexpected.
My buddy and I were at about 4,200 feet elevation on a cool, clear night. I was shooting Pleiades and he was going for Andromeda. But it got down to 42 degrees and we weren’t dressed for it and got way too cold. So around 1:30am we hurriedly finished and drove to our campsite that was at a lower elevation and a balmy 55 degrees (!). He went to sleep but I looked up and saw the Orion constellation. It was late and I was tired, so I decided to just take a bunch of 1-second exposures without the tracker. I think a tracker would have helped with sharper stars.
Specific Feedback Requested
any comments welcome!
Technical Details
Nikon D500, 200mm using 70-200mm lens, f/2.8, ISO 3200
387, 1-second exposures (6+ minutes total integration)
30 dark frames, 50 bias frames, no flats
Bortle 3 location
DeepSkyStacker to stack the images, and Photoshop for editing.
Thats a lot of frames to stack but a nice effort in the middle of the night…
The stars are what they are with no tracker, but you got a nice nebula.
Here is my Pixinsight Edit. Used star exterminator to take stars out and used deconvolution to make them tighter. Worked a bit on Nebula with some tools and put stars back in.
@Tom_Nevesely, Thank you! I’ve got a lot to learn, that’s for sure.
@Dan_Kearl, wow, you really improved the image. I like the revised star field because the stars are minimized and less distracting, and I like the increased contrast and color of the nebula. Thanks very much for giving an example of what can be done!
I’ve seen on Cloudy Nights the comment to get as much integration as possible to improve the signal to noise ratio, so I just let it run for all those 300+ exposures. Next time I’ll use my little Star Adventurer tracker and see if I can get 30-45 second or maybe even 60 second exposures.
I’m watching some PixInsight videos on YouTube to get the lay of the land before purchasing. It really seems to be the best.
You don’t need any more than 60 seconds on Orion, 30 is usually good. Do some at 10, the core is easily blown out.
Your tracker can do 60 seconds easy. If you are going to stick with DSLR stuff, find a used 180mm f2.8 manual lens for $200.
Also Modify an old cheap camera for $200.
Pixinsight does things no other software will do but I still use PS, Capture and others.
I stack with Astropixel which is really simple and works great.
Great start Mark on M42. With short exposures like that darks are not really needed unless you have amp glow in the image which I am pretty sure your camera does not have. The focus is off a little from what I can see in your image. if the lens has a sideways L like on canon lenses I use that is the focus point to see. Otherwise set the ISO very high like 6400 and take a 10 second to look at the stars. Then set it where you needed it once focus is set. There is another software package I think called Star Tools that many use after deep sky stacker. the tracker will need to be polar aligned if you plan to use anymore more than 70mm. Stopping down to f/4 will help the stars as well. I have the canon 28-70 f/2.8 which works wide open but I still stop it down to f/4
Thanks @Dean_Salman. Yeah I focused just using LiveView and didn’t use my Bahtinov mask so it is a bit soft. I’ve not heard of a sideways L! And I haven’t heard about the Star Tools program so I’ll look into that. Thanks for all your feedback.
Great to see the enthusiasm here! And you did an amazing job for the situation, and Dan made it even better. I’m also enjoying trying to remember this stuff again. Have been too busy lately but hope to be able to post a few soon. I have some good integration times on M31 and a start on IC1805. Hoping for Orion and the Rosette next dark of the moon.
Seemingly… I thought I had gotten over it, but I’ve been fascinated by the night sky since I was a little kid. I subscribed to “Sky and Telescope” when I was maybe 10 and almost got into grinding a mirror for a reflector, but sanity prevailed. (One of only a few instances…)
It’s a logical progression of expanding the use of our cameras and lenses. I was just getting serious with some decent equipment and starting up the learning curve when one of the CA wildfires brought it to halt in 2017. I thought I had decided to give it up, but the interest was still there, and it feels like unfinished business.
