Orion and Running Man in HSO (M42) (Linwood Ferguson)

Orion and Running Man in HSO (M42)

Revision title: Orion and Running Man in HSO (M42) Rev 2

This is the first light with my QuadTCC used with the SVX152T. It turns out to be a good match, if a bit difficult to get the tilt dialed in; nice round stars in the corner, and minimal vignetting even on a full frame image (this is a slight crop) just to emphasize the nebula). The reducer still has a bit of the far corners with some points on the stars, but a very small crop fixed that (easier than getting tilt perfect!)

This is mostly narrowband, with about 4 hours each of Ha, Sii, and Oiii; there is also an hour each of Red, Green and Blue which was used solely as a synthetic luminance to blend with the narrow band (also as luminance) and bring out the running man more completely, since it shows better in broad band. The area around the nebula uses luminance almost entirely from Ha (masked) to highlight the surrounding dust/gas which is more visible in Ha.

This dues use BlurXTerminator to bring out some detail, though mostly it reduced star bloat. Local Histogram Normalization is actually the source of most of the structure contrast, as is HDR Multiscale to tame the brighter areas and highly contrast in them.

All my attempts to use RGB stars failed, so this is SPCC's attempt at better color (with a tad of magenta removed).

This is a redo of my M42 from early 2021; there I used a 4" refractor (NP101is), this is entirely with the 6" refractor (SVX152T). Similar results, but a lot more detail, and a bit more dust/gas around it.

Original
Final
B

B

Title: Orion and Running Man in HSO (M42) Rev 2

Description: This is a minor revision to clip the background slightly in the darkest areas. This slightly reduces the dust visibility but substantially increases the nebula contrast, and I think if I'm going to have something so garish it might as well really have impact. I would welcome input as to which you prefer. As a point of reference the black point was changed from 0 to 20 (of 255) in photoshop, with 20 being the darkest spot I could find in the original.

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	7212201
PixInsight job	RTATTXNTVGV1FQC2E4O2DQIDTMXJ42BT
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	05h34m58s.891
RA (top/left)	05h32m41s.766
RA (top/right)	05h31m58s.561
RA (bottom/right)	05h37m17s.410
RA (bottom/left)	05h37m59s.293

Dec (center)	-05°11′19″.89
Dec (top/left)	-04°08′29″.26
Dec (top/right)	-06°07′14″.39
Dec (bottom/right)	-06°14′22″.41
Dec (bottom/left)	-04°15′27″.66

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