M42 - Seestar - Color Expressions (Jean-Paul Bakalarz)

M42 - Seestar - Color Expressions

Acquisition type: Electronically-Assisted Astronomy (EAA, e.g. based on a live video feed)

It was extremly easy to image M42 with the Seestar S50: Set it up, switch it on, connect it to the tablet, point to M42, image the nebula.

The situation was a different thing with the image processing. Especially as a newcomer it is very difficult to deal with new programs. Not for what you have to do, but for what is possible. I use PisInsight and Photosop. The possibilities are almost overwhelming. So i watched yarious YouTube tutorials and read many forum posts. But they all have one thing in common: They all recommend different procedures and menu items. So I usually ended up with "What should i do an when is should do? Should i do x before y or the other way around?"

I am still inexperienced in image processing and do not yet have any standard procedures. It is therefore not surprising that each processing of the same object produced a different result:

The one at the bottom left was my first edit. I wanted to have a clear result here.

I have no idea what I did with the one on the bottom right. But I like the colors.

On the top left I played with the Hubble palette in Pixinsight. I liked the green/purple the most.

The top right is the only image where I really wanted a specific color to be the dominant color in the final result. It should be mainly yellow. And, like the others, have a contrasting color. That did not work. Still, a nice yellow/orange composition came out.

It's very funny what came out of it. I think everyone had this phase of "expressionism" at some point. Did you? So I thought I'd share my experiences with you. I can tell every newcomer what I'm currently always telling myself: don't give up... use the back-button.... don't give up...

I hope that I will get better at editing in the coming years. That's why i'm also very happy about AstroBin. Here i can record my development in this beautiful hobby for myself. At the same time i hope that you like my pictures and stories.

Until then: Clear Skies

	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	9367733
PixInsight job	UI9RUR6J4AF0M1Z291PRQ7Y9U7PXXEGY
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	05h36m54s.35
RA (top/left)	05h39m45s.70
RA (top/right)	05h33m51s.100
RA (bottom/right)	05h34m00s.47
RA (bottom/left)	05h39m59s.99

Dec (center)	-05°43′36″.10
Dec (top/left)	-05°04′45″.7
Dec (top/right)	-05°07′46″.6
Dec (bottom/right)	-06°22′08″.4
Dec (bottom/left)	-06°18′56″.0

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