Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Orion (Ori)  ·  Contains:  Great Orion Nebula  ·  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
M42 Orion Nebula and Running Man, Rod Van Meter
M42 Orion Nebula and Running Man
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M42 Orion Nebula and Running Man, Rod Van Meter
M42 Orion Nebula and Running Man
Powered byPixInsight

Equipment

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Acquisition details

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Description

I went back and re-processed data from 2020/11/22, used for an earlier image. This time, I included the 10-second exposures, which is how I got the detail in the core of M42 that was blown out in the earlier pic.

I stacked 95x10sec exposures (with 15x10sec darks and the same flats I used for the earlier pic), then took that image and the 47x30sec stacked image, adjusted them so their histograms were similar, then stacked those two. It worked remarkably well; if you look closely at the two images, this one not only has more in the core, it has more detail in a few places, some of the stars are sharper, and importantly, the noise levels are substantially lower.

Lens is a 70-200mm zoom, set at 145. That allowed me to capture all the way over to Horsehead and Flame nebulae, used in a large picture posted on my blog but not (yet) here.

I think the optics & mechanics I used could still give a little more, if I shot at 200mm instead of 145mm focal length and took more lights, and especially more darks and flats. But I think this is pretty close to the limits of the data I have at this point.

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M42 Orion Nebula and Running Man, Rod Van Meter