Monday, 19 December 2022

M42 and its surrounding nebulosity

M42 and its surrounding nebulosity. This image of the Orion nebula was taken on four separate nights with very clear sky conditions. On the first two evenings the sky was very bright with the moon being almost full so I used my Astronomik H-alpha filter. On the third evening I used an O111 filter and on the fourth evening I used an S11 filter with RGB filters. I captured 60 second and five minute sub frames with matching dark frames and combined them with bias frames and flat field frames reducing the effect of nose and vignetting in the final image. The telescope was a 4 inch f/6.3 refractor with a Vixen Atlux mount, PHD auto guiding , a set of Astronomik narrowband and RGB filters. and an Atik 383L mono CCD camera. The total exposure times were ten minutes for each RGB filter, six hours and ten minutes using a H Alpha filter, two hours and 45 minutes using an O111 filter and two hours and ten minutes using an S11 filter giving  a total exposure time of 11 hours and 35 minutes. Notice the faint surrounding nebulosity in the background

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Hubble Palette




Hubble Palette with enhanced background



OIII, SII, H-alpha luminance RGB colour



Hubble Palette RGB colour