Orion Nebula dual narrowband (kmcloughlin)

Celestial hemisphere: Southern · Constellation: Orion (Ori) · Contains: 41 Ori A) · 41 Ori C · 41 Ori D · 41 the01 Ori · 42 Ori) · 42 c Ori · 43 Ori) · 43 the02 Ori · 44 Ori) · 44 iot Ori · 45 Ori · Great Orion Nebula · HD36606 · HD36655 · HD36671 · HD36782 · HD36842 · HD36843 · HD36865 · HD36883 · HD36917 · HD36918 · HD36938 · HD36958 · HD36959 · HD36960 · HD36981 · HD36982 · HD36998 · HD36999 · And 43 more.

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Orion Nebula dual narrowband

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Orion Nebula dual narrowband

M42 imaged with an L-ultimate (3 nm) dual narrowband filter and processed to retain as much contrast as possible in the Trapezium region. Shot with a Sigma 150-600mm zoom lens set to 600 mm FL.

My intent was to shoot an HDR image, so the Trapezium stars wouldn't be lost in the surrounding bright nebulosity. I therefore shot 40 15-second subs, 40 at 60 sec and 25 at 300 sec. There were waves of high cirrus clouds moving through the sky while I was setting up, so I expected I'd have to throw away some frames. As it turned out, though, the clouds disappeared just as I started imaging. Murphy's law worked in reverse, for once...

When I processed the images I discovered that, even in the 300 sec subs, there were almost no saturated pixels, therefore I could have saved myself the trouble of doing the shorter exposures. Silly me, I didn't realize that the 3 nm bandpass filter would cut down the signal so much on a bright object like M42. So I just stacked all the subs together in the end.

Transforming the image from linear to nonlinear was a challenge, though, because HistogramTransformation would blow out the bright part of the nebula no matter where I set the midtone level. Searching for a solution led me to Mike Cranfield and David Payne's Generalized Hyperbolic Stretch (GHS), which was exactly what I needed. I highly recommend this as a replacement for both HT and the CurvesTransformation tool; it gives you complete control over where in the histogram you want to increase contrast, while allowing you to protect the bright areas from saturation.

Optolong L-Ultimate filter
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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	7235130
PixInsight job	45R7HAO869S8TJPJBPNY7M70ED39LT43
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	05h35m07s.60
RA (top/left)	05h36m45s.25
RA (top/right)	05h38m59s.99
RA (bottom/right)	05h33m29s.81
RA (bottom/left)	05h31m14s.16

Dec (center)	-05°21′39″.7
Dec (top/left)	-06°27′20″.7
Dec (top/right)	-04°42′30″.8
Dec (bottom/right)	-04°16′05″.2
Dec (bottom/left)	-06°00′48″.3

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Orion Nebula dual narrowband

Orion Nebula dual narrowband

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Orion Nebula dual narrowband

Orion Nebula dual narrowband

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