Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Orion (Ori)  ·  Contains:  41 the01 Ori  ·  42 c Ori  ·  43 the02 Ori  ·  44 iot Ori  ·  45 Ori  ·  De Mairan's nebula  ·  Great Orion Nebula  ·  Hatysa  ·  IC 420  ·  Lower Sword  ·  M 42  ·  M 43  ·  Mairan's Nebula  ·  NGC 1973  ·  NGC 1975  ·  NGC 1976  ·  NGC 1977  ·  NGC 1980  ·  NGC 1981  ·  NGC 1982  ·  NGC 1999  ·  Orion Nebula  ·  Sh2-279  ·  Sh2-281  ·  The star 42Ori  ·  The star 45Ori  ·  The star θ1Ori  ·  The star θ2Ori  ·  The star ιOri  ·  Upper Sword  ·  And 3 more.
M42 in HDR, Craine
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M42 in HDR

M42 in HDR, Craine
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M42 in HDR

Equipment

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Acquisition details

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Description

I recently acquired a new to me ZWO ASi071 MC Pro as a replacement for my 183MC Pro. Given that I started my astrophotography journey about a year ago on M42, I thought it appropriate to come back to the source as it were, and see how much I have improved in my acquisition and processing capabilities.

I spent a few nights imaging, but ended up trowing out almost half of the subs due to a number of issues, including dust on my sensor, lack of flats (because I got so frustrated at the dust on the sensor), and Orion going behind the house. All in all, I spent 9.97 hours imaging, and ended up keeping 2.27 hours of subs.

The image is an HDR composite of 5, 60, and 180 second subexposures. I stacked each exposure length separately in Astro Pixel Processor, used light pollution removal, calibrated the star colors, and then a little selective HSL. After exporting, I brought each stack into Photoshop, and used the Astronomy Tools Space Noise Reduction action, then adjusted the bottom ends of the levels. After that, I combined the layers, starting with 5, then 60, then 180 subs on top. I used layer masks to hide the layers top down where they were blown out in the core.

Overall I am very happy with the result, and looking back, I can see the vast improvement over the last year.

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M42 in HDR, Craine