A common object at this time of year and seen many times! This was captured over 3 nights in January 2024.
A few of my goals - maintain some natural, subtle colour alongside depth and that dusty, nebulous look - it can be easy to saturate and flatten M42. I also like a bright core so it still feels like it's almost too bright to capture. Lastly, I attempted to kerb the reds in some of the dust a little so that the strong Ha edges to them (middle left, top centre left) stood out more.
Some of these goals weren't fully met, but hopefully some of them were.
120s subs at Gain 0 on the 2600MC could almost manage the core of M42 with only the Trapezium blown out. Adding some 30s subs using HDRComposition has done the trick though. Lots of processing approaches used to tease out various aspects a long the way.
Thanks for looking.
Captured with N.I.N.A., pre-processed in APP and processed in PixInsight.
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