M42, M43, NGC 1977, The Sword of Orion, 9 Mar 2013 (David Dearden)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Orion (Ori) · Contains: 41 Ori A) · 41 Ori C · 41 Ori D · 42 Ori) · 43 Ori) · 44 Ori) · Great Orion Nebula · Lower Sword · M 42 · M 43 · Mairan's Nebula · NGC 1973 · NGC 1975 · NGC 1976 · NGC 1977 · NGC 1980 · NGC 1982 · Orion Nebula · The star 45 Ori · The star Hatysa (ι Ori · The star Mizan Batil I (c Ori · The star Mizan Batil II (θ2 Ori · The star Trapezium (θ1 Ori A · The star θ1 Ori C · The star θ1 Ori D · the Running Man Nebula

M42, M43, NGC 1977, The Sword of Orion, 9 Mar 2013, David Dearden

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M42, M43, NGC 1977, The Sword of Orion, 9 Mar 2013

I wanted to do a widefield image of the Orion Nebula before it gets too far to the west to do it. I'm still working out how to use the finder/guider on the ST-80. I was able to make focus directly tonight without using a right-angle mirror, by just extending the camera nosepiece out a bit farther. We had a lot of gusty wind at the beginning of the session, but it seemed to calm down later. I'm having a lot of trouble guiding for some reason tonight; the RA guiding is all over the place. I think this must be a balance issue (and it probably was, because I replaced before taking my second image and had near-perfect guiding on that one). I did a bunch of 300 s subframes, but stacking them did not turn out as well as this image with shorter subs (at least so far). I’ll have to try processing that set again sometime when I’m not so tired.

Date: 9 Mar 2013

Subject: M42, M43, NGC 1977, the Sword of Orion

Scope: ST80+Antares 0.5x telereducer

Filter: Baader Planetarium UHC-S

Mount: CG-5 (Synta motors)

Guiding: 9x50 Finder/Guider + DSI Ic + PHD 1.14.01

Camera: DSI IIc (no chiller, T = 3 °C)

Acquisition: Nebulosity 3.1.2, no dither

Exposure: 19x60 + 23x15 s

Stacking: Neb 3, bad pixel map, bias included, normalize first, trans+rot align, 1.5 SD stack.

Processing: StarTools 1.3 Wipe, Develop, Contrast, Sharp, Deconvolute, Track, Magic:Shrink, Magic:Tighten, Life:Moderate, Mirror. CS6 Astronomy Tools layer mask combine, increase star color, AstroFrame.

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Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	6556654
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
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M42, M43, NGC 1977, The Sword of Orion, 9 Mar 2013

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