The Ten Millionth M42

[SIZE="Large"]"You realize that there are some people out there think the guy who really needs to get a life is the astroimager out there spending ten thousand dollars on equipment to take the ten millionth picture of M42" [/SIZE]

A. McConahay 3/10/10




I gotta agree with Alex's tongue in cheek wisdom, but I still can't resist posting my M42. I'm always posting these "late" in the season, because Denver sits just to the East of me and I can't image until an object is transiting or setting to the West.

This rendition includes 10 sub-frames each of Ha, OII, R, G and B at 15 minutes and 10 sub-frames for each filter at 2 minutes. I also took 20 L frames at each time interval and used maybe 17 of them/per time interval. It all totaled up to about 130 sub-frames and slightly over 19 hours of imaging time. Fortunately I have CCD Commander dialed in, so I was able to image all night over the course of a few January to early March days.

I just upgraded my old laptop, and that made a ton of difference as far as being able to process all of this data.

The processing is basically an LRGB with Ha supplementing the Red and L channels and OIII supplementing the Blue, Green and L channels too. As you guys know, I had to process the nebula core and interior separately to avoid washing out the brighter parts. This was a real project, with a ton of processing choices.

But I like the results, hopefully you do too. Thanks for any comments.

A full sized jpeg is located here:

http://home.comcast.net/~jameslbrown/pwpimages/Final%203.jpg

TEC APO 140 with flattener, FLI Microline 11002M, FLI wheel and focuser, Baader filters, Astro-Physics Mach 1, Maxim DL, Photoshop CS2, CCD Commander, Focus Max.

Jim

Attached Image:

Here is the Ha only, in black and white. I probably like this one best, and it was about a thousand times easier to process.

Full size:

http://home.comcast.net/~jameslbrown/pwpimages/M42%20final%20Ha%20BW.jpg

Jim

Attached Image:

Ii very fine photo, love all the details and the color. The wide field does it justice.

A very lovely image, no matter if it's been done before. One might have said the same thing to Leonardo after he did his version of some religious scene done a thousand times before.

Might be one-in-ten million, but it's still gorgeous. I never tire of them.

"You realize that there are some people out there think the guy who really needs to get a life is anybody would quote me as to who needs to get a life."

A. McConahay 4/13/2010

Thanks for the nice comments guys! I do appreciate it.

Jim

Jim Brown said:

[SIZE="Large"]"You realize that there are some people out there think the guy who really needs to get a life is the astroimager out there spending ten thousand dollars on equipment to take the ten millionth picture of M42" [/SIZE]

A. McConahay 3/10/10




I gotta agree with Alex's tongue in cheek wisdom, but I still can't resist posting my M42. I'm always posting these "late" in the season, because Denver sits just to the East of me and I can't image until an object is transiting or setting to the West.

This rendition includes 10 sub-frames each of Ha, OII, R, G and B at 15 minutes and 10 sub-frames for each filter at 2 minutes. I also took 20 L frames at each time interval and used maybe 17 of them/per time interval. It all totaled up to about 130 sub-frames and slightly over 19 hours of imaging time. Fortunately I have CCD Commander dialed in, so I was able to image all night over the course of a few January to early March days.

I just upgraded my old laptop, and that made a ton of difference as far as being able to process all of this data.

The processing is basically an LRGB with Ha supplementing the Red and L channels and OIII supplementing the Blue, Green and L channels too. As you guys know, I had to process the nebula core and interior separately to avoid washing out the brighter parts. This was a real project, with a ton of processing choices.

But I like the results, hopefully you do too. Thanks for any comments.

A full sized jpeg is located here:

http://home.comcast.net/~jameslbrown/pwpimages/Final%203.jpg

TEC APO 140 with flattener, FLI Microline 11002M, FLI wheel and focuser, Baader filters, Astro-Physics Mach 1, Maxim DL, Photoshop CS2, CCD Commander, Focus Max.

Jim

Excellent Jim, my new background image.
Mike

Hey Jim,

Really nice. M42 never gets old.

cheers,

Jeff

Jim Brown said:

[SIZE="Large"]"You realize that there are some people out there think the guy who really needs to get a life is the astroimager out there spending ten thousand dollars on equipment to take the ten millionth picture of M42" [/SIZE]

A. McConahay 3/10/10




I gotta agree with Alex's tongue in cheek wisdom, but I still can't resist posting my M42. I'm always posting these "late" in the season, because Denver sits just to the East of me and I can't image until an object is transiting or setting to the West.

This rendition includes 10 sub-frames each of Ha, OII, R, G and B at 15 minutes and 10 sub-frames for each filter at 2 minutes. I also took 20 L frames at each time interval and used maybe 17 of them/per time interval. It all totaled up to about 130 sub-frames and slightly over 19 hours of imaging time. Fortunately I have CCD Commander dialed in, so I was able to image all night over the course of a few January to early March days.

I just upgraded my old laptop, and that made a ton of difference as far as being able to process all of this data.

The processing is basically an LRGB with Ha supplementing the Red and L channels and OIII supplementing the Blue, Green and L channels too. As you guys know, I had to process the nebula core and interior separately to avoid washing out the brighter parts. This was a real project, with a ton of processing choices.

But I like the results, hopefully you do too. Thanks for any comments.

A full sized jpeg is located here:

http://home.comcast.net/~jameslbrown/pwpimages/Final%203.jpg

TEC APO 140 with flattener, FLI Microline 11002M, FLI wheel and focuser, Baader filters, Astro-Physics Mach 1, Maxim DL, Photoshop CS2, CCD Commander, Focus Max.

Jim

Hi all:

I've always thought that the colors of the M42 I posted last year were too garish. I also think I over noise-reduced unduly softening the image. So I reprocessed the same data from scratch. It is always amazing how differently things can turn out.

My goal was more detail in the dark regions around the nebula, better detail in the M42 core and softer reds. I like this version better, at least I do on my monitor.

A full-res jpeg is here:

http://home.comcast.net/~jameslbrown/pwpimages/Final%202%20cropped.jpg

Thanks for any comments.

Jim

Attached Image: