Orion

[Kenny]

Another pic from this evening's session at Cudham, shortly after Roger left. Widefield exposure of Orion (plus Taurus).

This is a single 13 second exposure, saved on the camera as JPG, unprocessed. Oddly, this turned out better than the RAW/CR2 version of the same image that I stacked with 2 x darks and re-lit in LightZone.

Canon 450D. 13 seconds at 18mm, f/5, ISO-1600. 13 seconds is an upper limit at this zoom (without a tracking mount). The stars are starting to elongate.

[Kenny]

My first attempt at a zoomed in photo of the Orion Nebula. Canon 450D. 10 x 2 second exposures (longer would have elongated the stars) stacked (RAW) with 4 darks in DSS. 200mm, f/6.3, ISO-1600. Focus looks slightly off.

[Kenny]

I definitely need to work on my processing skills more. I processed the JPG version of this, 10 x images, without darks, and it has come out with more nebulosity! 

[Carole]

Great focus and composition in the top one Kenny. 

I can see it won;t be long before you're doing long exposure imaging.

Carole

[Mike]

The first one is nice and has a natural coloured sky. The second one is too black again.

[Kenny]

The first one is nice and has a natural coloured sky. The second one is too black again.

Thanks. Will have another look at this. I was trying to keep the noise level low.

[Kenny]

ISS transit of Orion at dusk, taken from Otford this evening. Only the corner stars were naked eye visible when I took the photo but the camera has picked up more including the belt, sword and Orion Nebula. The bright star Sirius in Canis Major is just above the horizon below Orion.

Canon 450D. Single 10 second exposure at 18mm, f/6.3, ISO-400. RAW/CR2 file light adjusted in LightZone (exposure reduced and darkened - the exposure came out as near daylight which masked the stars).

[Kenny]

Reprocess of the Orion nebula shot above following feedback about the image being too dark, and applying some of the Photoshop CS2 tips I got from Carole at last Friday night's imaging session. Clearer, but more work to do.