I wanted to take the opportunity to point out how much astro shots are subject to interpretation by the software. I made the first image in 2016, and the second one in 2017. Each is many exposures of up to maybe a minute each, over several hours, with an Orion Sirius star tracker, with dark and bias frames, processed in PixInsight. I don’t have a telescope, but used my Canon 400 DO II. I would have to dig back into a different LR catalog for the details but the camera in the first was probably the Canon 7D2 modified to be sensitive to infrared, and the second probably the Canon 5D3. The camera is not very important until you get into the specialized astro cameras, which are no more like our everyday cameras than a telescope is like our lenses. But we can do amazing things with photographic equipment.
This one was taken in 2017 and processed with the same software, with a different intent.
I just wanted to add a bit of a commercial for what a backyard astronomer can do.
Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
I would have to dig through a morass of information in a different LR catalog and notes – not really relevant here. It is an endless quest and a lot of fun, but I’m off onto other pursuits now, having pursued astro as far as I can go without much more sophisticated equipment and techniques.
These are interesting images, Diane. First thing to say is that I envy you because of the opportunity to make such images from your backyard. I live in a region with so much light pollution, that I wouldn’t know where to go to find a place that is sufficiently dark. I bought a simple telescope as a high school kid, never bothered to replace it by something better because of the circumstances I have to deal with.
The night sky is an intriguing place to wander around. I like both your images, especially the second one, and agree that it is all about software interpretation. That is no problem, I think, because our unamplified eyes can hardly see the colors that are present in the scenes that you show us.
Thanks, @Hans. Darkness and clear skies are important . We’re in a Bortle Class 4 location, but aiming north the sky is darker. Over the hill south there is noticeable light pollution from the Santa Rosa area. There is a Class 3 location 45 minutes away favored by a lot of North Bay Area astronomers but it has been degraded by the growth of two small towns. And dark skies seem to be getting more scarce as increasing air pollution magnifies the effect of city lights.
More detail can be pulled out of the images with more frames, which allows better noise reduction. Total integration time of all the exposures of 5-6 hours allows pretty good results. Looking at the histogram, which is WAY on the dark end, it is hard to believe there is any information in the mid-tones but software can pull it out. PixInsight is worth the trouble to learn.
These are excellent M42 images, not to be confused with my beginner versions… I take more noise out than you do, Serious astro cameras have zero noise to deal with which would be nice…
I also do a bit of dust and scratch star removal for my personal taste.
Thanks, @Dan_Kearl – removal of smaller stars is usually an excellent idea. Looks like I didn’t do it here. These were near the bottom of climbing the cliff of trying to master PixInsight. I never made it much farther up than the distance where I felt I would be able to survive a fall.
I’ll readily admit that I know nothing about serious astro photography, but that does not prevent me from enjoying it very much. I prefer the second image over the first one. To me the square crop with M42’s dead center placement looks a bit static, and almost documentary. To me the second image feels more dynamic, and elevates itself to being almost an abstract image. I prefer the second images aspect ratio, and the off-center placement of M42. The more dynamic feeling comes from the interaction of M42 with the rest of the star field. When viewed as an abstract, the colors are more about aesthetics than scientific accuracy, but both sets of colors are pleasing to me. My only suggestion for the second image would be to crop or clone away the big, bright star along the bottom frame edge in the LRC.
