Oh yes! It's that time of the year. M42 time

I decided to reprocces the old M42 CI project, including some of the new data. The image is now a composit of more than 300 images from 158 different amateur astronomers.

As an experiment, I recently tried to shoot the Trapezium using the Lucky Imaging method. I shot 200x 1 second exposures, and sorted out the sharpest half. Then I ran those through the PixInsight SubFrameSelector script, and stacked them using Weight =1/FWHM. The result was blended into the crowd image.

I'm not completely satisfied with the result, but I think I've achieved some of the goals I had. First of all, I think the original CI was too processed, and even though it had sharper details than this version, I like the “light curve” better in this one.

Furthermore, I used the added amount of data available to make the field a bit larger, and I tried to get better seperation on the different colors in the faint outer parts of the nebulosity.

Image credits (once again a thousand thanks for sharing your work!)

Adam Block, Adam Evans, AG9000, Agustin Nunez, Ahmet Kale, aknotwot, AlexCharyna, Alizée Rait, Álvaro Pérez Alonso, Alvinillo, Andolfato, André Lucas Melo, Andrei Shokhan, Andrew, Andrew Bennett, Angel Requena, Antonio Vilchez, arcturus13, AstroGG, ASTROIDF, astrojeff, Astroluc63, Barry Brook, bbrowning, Ben Robeson, Bob ten Berge, budman1961, Burkhard, Casey Fox, Charlie Prince, Chris Madson, Chris Ryan, ckrege, Claustonberry, Cody Garges, Creedence, cristiano.c, Czerwik, Daniele Malleo, David Milligan, David Nguyen, DavidL, deadlydude, dgc, dgc, dkuchta5, echosud, Eric Kallgren, Fabien Rosso, Filippos Filippoglou, Flavastro, fragro, FranckIM06, Fredrik Ödling, Fritz, galaad16, Gary Gause, geco71, glgerard, Goofi, greenbbs, gulielmus, Gustavo Naharro, harbinjer, Heiko Günther, homer2jedi, Igor Fulvi, J.Mattei, Jan Curtis, Jannick Petersson, Jason Tackett, Javier R., Jay, jdiwnab, Jeff Tropeano, Jens Zippel, Johan Schmaal, Jorge Barata, Jorge Gomez, José Luis Márquez Regueiro, Juan Lozano, Jussi Kantola, Kal, Kirchen Claude, Konstantinos Stavropoulos, Kosh, LE DALL, Luca Billeri, Luigi Fontana, Luiz Menezes Jr, m_abdulkareem, m_abdulkareem, MacRoAstro, Marcelo Bastos Moreira da Silva, Marcelo Domingues, Matt Jenkins, Matthew, Matthias Brettschneider, Matti Nissinen, maxgaspa, maxou9914, Michael Southam, Mikko Laine, milosz, mondoman712, Morten Balling, Nathan Coleman, nicoairbus, Oleg Zaharciuc, Oliveira, Oliver Czernetz, P. Fred, pade, pascvale13, Paul Storey, PaulHutchinson, Peter Gottstein, Petros Pissias, pfile, pisto92, PoGo, Prabhakar, psoup487, PVO, radu, Rafael Leon, Ramon, Richard Muhlack, rid, RIKY, Rowland, Ruslan Zavadzich, Ryan Shaw, Sabazou, Salvopa, Sebastiano Recupero, Shane Poage, sipa, smithy, Stan McQueen, Stefano Giardinelli, Stefano Morandi, Steve, Steve Yan, Surfus_1980, sweeper, TheBreed, Tim, Tim Schuh, TimN, Tino Leichsenring, Tom Masterson, tphelan88, Trabatti Roberto, Vincenzo, Vojtěch Kudela, William, Yohan Riou.