Telescope Reviews: M42 - Progress over time

I don't know why I'm even posting this really, probably because I am bored after selling off all of my DSO imaging gear and have been fiddling through old image data to get my "fix".

I started AP on 04/21/08 and of course not knowing a thing about AP I picked one difficult target as my first - Orion. I wasn't autoguiding at the time, had no clue about CCD cameras, nor anything about polar alignment or proper AP gear. Like many visual astronomers switching to AP, I just assumed go for the biggest aperature I could afford and bought a C10 newt on a CG5 mount. I've been through 3 completely different imaging rigs thus far and have now sold #3 off to start #4. This tells me a few things:

A) I should have read more from the start.
B) I am learning through trial and error quite effectively
C) I still don't remotely have it all figured out and I'm realizing my limitations each step of the way and identifying what I need to progress to the next step. It hasn't always been a need for hardware improvements though, and I've figured that out from time to time by simply going back and finding my "old, crummy" image data and reprocessing it just to see what I could squeeze out of it.

Thanks to a great many people here on CN who have helped me over the last 1.5 yrs, I feel I have cleared many hurdles and learned so much. Anyway, less rambling more pics - here is M42:

M42 - 1st attempt 04/21/09 Meade DSI IIc, CG5, C10, 15 sec. I got the core, and had really no clue at this point in time what I was doing other than I could recognize the focus was close.

M42 - 2nd attempt 10/10/09 - I swapped OTAs at this point to a Starblast 6 for imaging and was autoguiding. Used the DSI at the White Sands Star Party, took 10x5sec + 10x15sec + 10x30sec + 10x60sec and thought I'd try "layering". Had no clue on that either and completely botched the core blend, oversaturated the heck out of the shot, but I was proud to have captured all the faint stuff for the first time.

M42 - 3rd attempt a few weeks later, same gear as above except I used the faster Starblast 4.5 instead of the Starblast 6. I pretty much reattempted everything from before with the same type of steps, managed to get slightly better at the color scheme, but over all I think the image came out worse, and the core was still botched. I probably spent hours processing this one.

M42 4th attempt Nov 25, 2008: This is where things started to click for me. I used the Starblast setup, ran 10 subs on each panel, and then ran a series of different exposure length subs for the core area. This one is where I learned everything I know today about manual mosiac building.. This sucker was something like 9 panels. I also learned the importance of taking more subs and dark subtraction, and the limitations of OSC cameras. I was happy I matched up the tiles well, but the image overall was still fairly noisey and poor contrast. I didn't botch the core, but it was still too bright...

Since taking my November image, I have not reshot Orion completely, other than just the Trap while testing a new mono camera, but no serious attempts yet. I'll miss it completely this season due to selling off my DSO gear and working on upgrading.

Reproc A of "2nd attempt" data - This was about 4 minutes of effort with my old raw data from my 2nd attempt in October, no darks, 10 subs x 5 sec + 10 subs x 60 sec, completely assembled in Photoshop. It's no award winning image, but it shows me personally that I've figured out how to work with poor data with heavy limitations and figured out the layering tricks to my own degree of satisfaction. I had ok data, I just needed more subs, and darks to really help this image out, along some processing skills.

Reproc B - added in that "core" data shot from my mono cam using an Ha filter, and blended it in to the luminance channel to make the core pop a bit more.

These reprocs may be a bit dim on your screen, I processed them on a little Netbook and what I see here doesn't always reflect on most normal screens.

Since shooting all of the above data, I switched to a Hypertuned LXD75, a mono camera, and a 66mm APO imager. I learned a lot about my approaches and what I was doing wrong/still doing wrong. And my latest images now look like this (Sorry they aren't M42 since I haven't reshot it yet, but these are my most recent work):

http://www.astrophotogallery.org/showphoto.php/photo/3612

http://www.astrophotogallery.org/showphoto.php/photo/3500

http://www.astrophotogallery.org/showphoto.php/photo/3609

http://www.astrophotogallery.org/showphoto.php/photo/3176

http://www.astrophotogallery.org/showphoto.php/photo/3769

I've yet again hit a hardware limitation, this time it includes mount, camera, and OTAs, so I'm yet again replacing my setup. Hopefully when I return fully to DSO imaging in the spring, I'll be able to identify yet another significant quality improvement in my imaging.

Thanks again to the people on CN for showing the way. I feel I've come a long way, but still have a very long way to go yet. But with all of the guidance I've gotten on this site, I know I'll get there before too long.

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-Josh

http://cleardarksky.com/c/AlbuqNMkey.html

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