M42 in 20 minutes or less... (David McClain)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Orion (Ori) · Contains: Great Nebula in Orion · M 42 · M 43 · NGC 1976 · NGC 1977 · NGC 1980 · NGC 1982 · The star 42Ori · The star 45Ori · The star θ1Ori · The star θ2Ori · The star ιOri

M42 in 20 minutes or less..., David McClain

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M42 in 20 minutes or less...

Powered byPixInsight

M42 in 20 minutes or less...

My first light image, first 20 minutes with a new HyperStar C8 + ATIK 490EX camera, unguided Paramount MYT. I had no idea what exposure to use, so I shot a series of 5 frames each at 0.01 s, 0.1s, 1.5s, 15s, and 150s. Processing in PixInsight as an HDR stack. When I saw what I had captured, it totally blew me away! Are you kidding? 20 minutes? Can't wait to get serious!

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2016-01-09

I discovered a new tool called "Local Histogram Equalization". It works magic by strengthening the inherent contrast in local regions to bring out astonishing levels of detail in the wispy structure of the nebula.

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2016-02-03

Well, wadyaknow... I finally learned how to color calibrate my camera in post-processing, and I also learned how to abuse the MURE DeNoise algorithm. (It really does work on deBayered images. Maybe not as well as on pure single channel images. But it really does produce an improvement in most cases.)

This may not be as saturated as it needs to be, but it is a start in the right direction for color.

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Now that I really know how to do a proper HDR image, I reworked this old data. Still a pretty good data set for only 20 minutes on the sky, first time out with HyperStar.

Original
B
C
Final
D

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	1081356
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

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M42 in 20 minutes or less...

M42 in 20 minutes or less...

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Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

M42 in 20 minutes or less...

M42 in 20 minutes or less...

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

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Sky plot

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