[AZ-Observing] Taking a different look at Orion
- From: Mike Wiles <mikewilesaz@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "AZ-Observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <AZ-Observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2013 21:53:31 -0700
Back in mid-December I suddenly found myself at home for a few days kicking
it with my teenage daughter Mikayla and helping to nurse her back to 100%
awesome status after having surgery to evict her tonsils. She'd remarked a
few days before that her favorite object that I've ever imaged was the
Orion Nebula. Since I had the downtime, I thought to myself...I should take
that image and try to put a little twist on it for her. After just a few
hours of time on it I realized that I had the start of a really nice image
and that I should invest the time to really do it right. This is the result
of that effort.
So I realize I'm not the first person to shoot M42 in the Hubble Palette.
It's just not as common as some other objects. It's a great narrowband
target, so the only thing I can figure is that we're just so accustomed to
it's natural LRGB look that the narrowband just doesn't look 'right'. I was
very much surprised at how much SII signal there was in the data. Unlike
most narrowband images, the SII signal was really strong.
Mike
*M42 - Hubble Palette*
*Dates:* December 17th, 2012 through January 4th, 2013
*Location:* Goodyear, Arizona
*Telescope:* Explore Scientific ED127CF Refractor - 127mm f/7.5 Carbon
Fiber Triplet
*Mount:* Astro-Physics AP900GTO CP3
*Camera:* SBIG ST-8300m and SBIG FW8-8300 filter wheel
*Guiding:* SBIG ST-i Mono and SBIG OAG-8300 off-axis guider
*Exposure:* 19.1 hours - 3nm filters, subs of 30s, 180s and 1800s
*Capture:* CCD AutoPilot v5, Maxim DL 5.18
*Calibration & Processing:* PixInsight 1.7
The image can be found at Astrobin: M42 Hubble Palette -
ED127CF<http://www.astrobin.com/full/29408/?mod=none>
While I was processing, I also tried creating a synthetic LRGB image from
the narrowband data. It's interesting to see how close to natural colors
can be done if the channels are mixed well. It's certainly not going to
fool anyone that it's a visible light broadband image, but it's not
terribly far off either. The star colors of course are a dead giveaway. I
created the image by mixing the channels as:
Red: 75% Ha + 25% SII
Green: 50% SII + 50% OIII
Blue: 70% OIII + 30% Ha
This image is at: http://www.astrobin.com/full/29408/B/?
Your comments and criticisms are welcomed.
Thanks,
Mike
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