Sunday, March 2, 2014

Orion Nebula (M42) with Canon T5i on a Fixed Tripod

Shortly after receiving the Canon T5i for Christmas, I went out and did a series of test shots which quickly filled my smaller memory card with 18 megapixel RAW files. I was really pleased with the results, but only got 42 light frames that night. Recently, I was able to give M42 an honest attempt using the fixed tripod stacking method and my new camera with a larger memory card.

I'm still waiting for nicer weather to break out my motor driven EQ mount. I'm a little intimidated by it, and I don't want to fumble with it for the first time in freezing temperatures. So fixed tripod stacking is still the name of the game!

M42 orion nebula
M42 and M43, stack of 107 subs, 77 darks, 70 bias, ISO 3200, 300mm, f/5.6, 1.3 sec

It came out a little bright. That's the trade off I guess, I like how you can see a lot of the very faint nebulosity - making M42 look as big as I've seen it. On the other hand, the interior is over exposed and sort of washed out. I don't do enough of these to really work on my post-processing skills. All in due time!
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8 comments:

  1. Jason McCabeMarch 2, 2014 at 4:31 PM

    Hi, I was just wondering why you don't seem to saturate your images?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Eric TeskeMarch 2, 2014 at 6:12 PM

    Hi Jason! This one in particular ended up a little washed out. In general I don't like to blow things out too far with saturation and contrast because I feel like that makes them look unnatural. It's just an aesthetics thing I guess. My photos barely have enough detail to even worry about it, but here is an article that I tend to agree with when it comes to over-processing: http://theamazinglight.wordpress.com/2011/11/25/the-processing-and-over-processing-of-night-sky-images/

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jason McCabeMarch 3, 2014 at 4:29 PM

    No problem. If you remember I asked back in September how you set about locating and shooting Andromeda - http://www.ericteske.com/2013/09/starting-next-andromeda-season-with.html


    It took some time and a new camera, but I was somewhat successful! I haven't been able to get anything quite as stunning as your captures at 300mm, but I'm quite happy with the I've attached at 75mm.


    I've also attached my best M42 and a shot of Comet Lovejoy. I couldn't tell you how many lights, darks or bias I used for each, I'm just too anxious to get them processed!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jason McCabeMarch 3, 2014 at 4:31 PM

    No problem. If you remember I asked back in September how you set about locating and shooting Andromeda -http://www.ericteske.com/2013/...

    It took some time and a new camera, but I was somewhat successful! I haven't been able to get anything quite as stunning as your captures at 300mm, but I'm quite happy with the I've attached at 75mm.

    I've also attached my best M42 and a shot of Comet Lovejoy. I couldn't tell you how many lights, darks or bias I used for each, I'm just too anxious to get them processed!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Eric TeskeMarch 4, 2014 at 7:51 AM

    Those are legit! Nice work! Do you have a blog that you post your photos to??

    ReplyDelete
  6. Jason McCabeMarch 4, 2014 at 4:17 PM

    I had been inspired by your blog and tried to retrospectively document my journey on my tumblr, but haven't yet got caught up to the present.

    http://sporadicallyintelligent.tumblr.com/tagged/astro

    ReplyDelete
  7. Eric TeskeMarch 4, 2014 at 4:45 PM

    Cool I'll link you in my sidebar. Are you going to tag all your astro photos with 'astro' so that is the best link to use?

    ReplyDelete
  8. Jason McCabeMarch 4, 2014 at 4:59 PM

    Thank you! I will be using that tag when I get round to posting some more, which I'm going to have to do soon it seems!

    ReplyDelete

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