[RCC] Orion (RGB + Ha + O-III) - Forums

Topic starter

Mar 10, 2021 · Edited: Mar 10, 2021

Dear Astrobin Community,

Orion is of course a target that everyone tried before :-) We wondered, what do you think about our version? How could it be improved or what would you do differently? Is this a reasonable result with the equipment used, under the skies available here (UK suburbs)?

Thank you :-)
Janos & Dora

Astrobin link: Orion Nebula & Running Man Nebula

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Harald Tomesch

Mar 10, 2021 · Edited: Mar 10, 2021

Hello Janos and Dora,

I went and looked up your technical card first of all to see what equipment and software you were using - 112 frames in 30 minutes on Canon 7D Mark II shooting through a SkyWatcher over two days. I am only shooting this system for the next to months. So here goes.
I like the contrast between the fan and the dark sky. Similarly the clarity of the outer stars and your coma corrector and reducer are doing their job. I like the way you framed your image but a little attention to the framing my help. Super image.
I am looking at as much film on this nebula as I can find -I now look for clarity in the inner fan and the extension of the dark into the fan and the distinction of Orionis A,B,C and D stars in the center cluster. As for the filters, my hope would be that those filters may have allowed for more color but I too have not been able to bring those out yet and am working on it. From what I read certain editors can help and I am looking forward to other comments in this thread on that matter.
Excellent work there in Roof, Bolton, UK

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lenart

Topic starter

Mar 10, 2021

Thank you for your comment

Good luck with your imaging too, it is quite tricky with a dobsonian - that's what you have if I understand well.

Btw, we shot 112 times 30 seconds (61 minutes exposure) plus 41 times 2 minutes (82 minutes exposure) with a different filter.

Rodney Watters

Mar 22, 2021

Janos and Dora, this is a fine M42 image and whilst it is a popular target we all need to have one in our portfolio. My comments and observations on this image are:

* The background of the image has a distinct blue caste. If you look at the histogram on the technical card page in Astrobin you can see the blue area extending across to the right. This confirms that the blue data has a lot of faint pixels present in the background. The technical card does not indicate the processing software that you are using but I use Pixinsight which has a background neutralisation process which balances the background colours and values.

* You have captured the trapezium as well which is good as this is one area that can be a challenge given the extremely high dynamic range. I see that you have taken a combination of 30” and 120” exposures. Was to help with the dynamic range or because of the different filters? Depending on the processing software that you are using you may be able to capture even shorter exposures and combine them using high dynamic range processing techniques. This would help to bring out the trapezium and even more detail in the core of the nebula.

* Is you Canon 7D modified or a stock camera? The red for the Ha present has been captured very well.

Overall, a fine image.

Clear skies,
Rodney

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lenart

Topic starter

Mar 24, 2021

Thanks for your reply, Rodney :-)

* About the blue cast: I think you are right :o The images were processed with GIMP. There was a background neutralisation during preprocessing which I think works well (see the Ha/OIII only version, photometric color balance). But when after we added the RGB data into the mix we wanted to process is differently to get the current color temperature. I think we made the mistake of tampering with the temperature globally, and we only should have done so on the nebulous parts. Lesson learned

* The Ha/OIII data was taken during basically full Moon, right next to Orion... 30s @ISO 800 was as high as we could go without burning in too many pixels. (At this exposure only a handful of pixels were saturated.) With 120s @ISO 1600 we knew we would be saturating a considerable area (also, much more allowing filter) but we were hoping to capture more details (over 3 stops brighter exposure). So yes, idea was to capture higher dynamic range with the different exposure lengths; we were not trying to even out the different amount of brightness from the different filters (that would have required us doing the opposite, as our Ha/OIII filter is a lot more restrictive than the LP filter we used for the RGB). I like your idea of adding even more data, at shorter exposure; but that will need to wait until the winter, Orion is very low for us now

* The Canon 7DmkII we are using is a stock camera. We got it at a discount from eBay at 200k expos. Probably won't last forever, but it was a step up from the 400D for us

Again, thank you for your comments. Later I will RCC other images, I hope you will chime in

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