21/03/2026
I have not done any Astronomical Imaging for a few months. However, over the Christmas period recently I did gather data on this Deep Space Object, namely The M42 Orion Nebula.
This diffuse nebula is very close, sitting at only 1344 Light Years from Earth, in the constellation of Orion. It is an easy target to capture, but you need to use different exposure lengths in order to attempt to preserve data of the Core. If not you will waste a lot of time and the core will be blown out. I took test exposures before capturing, ranging from 1 second up to 10 seconds and then 120 seconds and finally 300 seconds. It took a couple of weeks to collect all the narrowband data sets.
The nebula is a stellar nursery and there are four trapezium stars present in the core and they are the reason for taking different length exposures.
Finally on Thursday, whilst at home with Shirley I sought to process the data.
The image is my first draft of the Nebula and I have not looked at the Orion Nebula in almost 5 years. I do not think it is too bad.
Capturing Telescope: Williams Optics ZS 73 mm refractor.
Guiding Telescope: Ascension 80 mm Triplet Refractor.
Imaging Camera: Atik 460 Ex Mono
Guiding Camera: Atik 314L+
Mount: Skywatcher NEQ6
Filters: Badder Hydrogen Alpha, Oxygen III & Sulphur II.
The Image was processed using Pixinsight.
