M43/42 - Santa and his sleigh? (Tom Gray)

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 1982 · Orion Nebula · The star 42Ori · The star 45Ori · The star θ1Ori · The star θ2Ori · The star ιOri · the Running Man Nebula

M43/42 - Santa and his sleigh?, Tom Gray

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M43/42 - Santa and his sleigh?

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M43/42 - Santa and his sleigh?

While you were all soundly sleeping, Santa (aka the running man) and his sleigh were visible late on Christmas eve crossing the SW skies.

I think I have now completed my refractor set up, with a 5mm extension ring to optimise my focal reduction - maximising the image scale and minimising star distortion. At a little under an hour of integration, I am pleased to have captured these nebulae in a single field. The image is a bit noisy, largely due to the day 10 moon that lit up this winter scene.

On a cold and frosty night... sweet dreams.

Final
Original
B
C

B

Description: This ‘seasonal’ version was stacked, aligned and HDR brightening and sharpening applied in Penumbra v0.6. The resulting L and RGB frames were then composed in Startool v1.6 and colour balance adjusted, before repairing distorted stars and some artefacts. I like the vibrancy of colours and the detail that has been extracted, even if the the core is blown out, and it looks as though it fell off the Christmas tree!

Uploaded: ...

C

Description: Revisiting old data with ASTAP - astrometric solving and stacking software, which does a good job weeding out the rubbish from my data. This final LRGB version comprises 30 x 15s and 35 x 30s L, 29 x 15s R, 27 x 15s G, and 48 x 15s B aligned and stacked in ASTAP followed by processing using a standard workflow in Startools. Unfortunately I couldn't find my flat frames, so some artifacts still present. Overall, I'm pleased with the colour and detail in this final version.

Uploaded: ...

Altair Astro 183 M/C Hypercams
UK Astro-Imaging
Low-Cost Astrophotography

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Status	Basic success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	4463371
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
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M43/42 - Santa and his sleigh?

M43/42 - Santa and his sleigh?

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M43/42 - Santa and his sleigh?

M43/42 - Santa and his sleigh?

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