NGC2024

I was actually shooting for Horsehead and ended up on the flame nebula :) Also the pointing was bad, because you can only see a part of the flame. The coloration might be un-true too. This is 20x10 min exposures with a 20x10 min darks. 150x10 sec flats and flat darks. I processed three different times and this one is with Sigma, Astroart and PS

Ray Gralak's Sigma

Same data, except I used Ray Gralak’s sigma to process the subexposures. The earlier image was with astroart processing the subs. The improvement I believe is primarily because I handled photoshop better when adding the RGB frames to the luminance and not because of Sigma, although, the data I have has enough flaws in it for Sigma to make any significant difference. I feel Sigma is a surgeons instrument, while my skill level at this point in collecting the raw data is akin to that of a butcher :)

M42 in Color!!

Picture of M42. After significant processing here’s what I have. My processing skills are improving but still have a long way to go. You can still see a lot of blooming stars and also the fuzziness is probably because my R&P focuser does not do a good job. And maybe my collimation was off too :(
This is a composite of 20x10 min exposures. 10x10 min darks were taken for noise and 150x10 sec flats and flat-darks were used. Didn’t use bias. But maybe next time I will use them and see if it makes things any better. Bias information, though should be contained in the darks itself and should be sufficient since the darks are of the same duration as the light images.

Second light - Take 4

Another failed attempt to locate an object. I was looking for M33. Couldn’t find it. It may have been too big to fit into the FOV of my camera. This looks like one of the spiral arms of it though, doesn’t it? 3x10 min exposures with 1 10 min dark. No flats.

Second light - Take 3

Can you see the small galaxy there? I was actually searching for Helix nebula. Didn’t find it, but somewhere along the way I found this :) I have no idea what this is or if it is even cataloged. I think though, that this might be NGC7184. This was 3x10 min exposures with 1 10 min dark. No flats again.

Second light - Take 2

What should follow M1? M2, of course :) This is a 3x10 min exposure with 1 10 min dark frame. I think I should take as many dark frames as exposures and for just as long. Color balance is again off. I have to learn how to do that right...

Second light - Slightly Better :)

Read up a little and I think it paid off :) Found M1 after some hopping and slewing. 2x20 min exposures, 1 30 min exposure and 1 40 min exposure. 1 10 min dark frame and no flats. I should start taking flats. I think they will help. I have been using the artificial flat plugin for astroart from www.astrochris.com. I should probably keep the exposures lower too. The stars bloat up because of the long exposure. Then again that might be an artifact of poor focussing and improper collimation. The more I do this, the more I realize that everything has to be perfect. When I combined this in PS, I think I screwed up the color balance. Oh!! BTW, this is the first time I saw M1 ;)