Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Orion (Ori)  ·  Contains:  Great Orion Nebula  ·  IC 420  ·  IC 430  ·  Lower Sword  ·  M 42  ·  M 43  ·  Mairan's Nebula  ·  NGC 1973  ·  NGC 1975  ·  NGC 1976  ·  NGC 1977  ·  NGC 1980  ·  NGC 1981  ·  NGC 1982  ·  Orion Nebula  ·  The star 42Ori  ·  The star 45Ori  ·  The star θ1Ori  ·  The star θ2Ori  ·  The star ιOri  ·  Upper Sword  ·  the Running Man Nebula
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Orion - My first nebula, Cameron Lindhorst
Orion - My first nebula
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Orion - My first nebula

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Orion - My first nebula, Cameron Lindhorst
Orion - My first nebula
Powered byPixInsight

Orion - My first nebula

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Description

This is the first nebula that I've imaged where everything actually worked out.  My first couple attempts were of the North American nebula and between the light pollution and poor calibration frames, I was very displeased with the result.  Despite my poor first attempts, and hours of discouraging work, I decided to give the Orion nebula a shot and can't believe the result.  I didn't realized I could actually get colors out of the nebula without filtering, capturing in mono and separating colors in post.  I'm very pleased this worked out with the limited gear that I have.  I'll try again next for the Andromeda Galaxy since it is the largest (to my knowledge).

A couple things I want to work on:
1. The further out from the center of the image, the stars have a triangular tail pointing inward.  I believe this is a problem with the quality of lens I'm using.  I might play with different apetures to find which results in the sharpest image.
2. I made a Bahtinov mask to try and get a better focus and hopefully more clarity in the cloudiness of the nebula.
3. I think I'll shoot in a higher ISO so I don't have to stretch so much after the image is stacked.  I know this doesn't actually "gather more light" it just amplifies what the sensor receives. I'm hopeful that this will allow me more room to stretch in GIMP but don't want to risk the stars becoming big blobs of white.

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Orion - My first nebula, Cameron Lindhorst