M42 Orion Nebula - First Light With The QHY8L
After what seemed like a long wait, I finally had a clear night this week and managed to get first light with the QHY8L that I purchased second hand on astrobuysell.com. The target was M42 (the Orion Nebula) and I have to say that I am quite pleased with the result. The image was captured using the QHY8L camera, cooled to -20 degrees, and attached to a Sky-Watcher Explorer 190MN Pro. The image consists of 10 x 200s and 10 x 45s exposures, captured using the QHY EZCAP software, with initial processing and stacking in Nebulosity 3 and final processing in Photoshop CS6. Equipment used is the Sky-Watcher Explorer 190MN Pro, mounted on a NEQ6 with a 2" Hutech IDAS LPS P2 filter to enhance contrast and reduce the effect of light pollution.
The shorter exposures were important so that the Trapezium (tight group of 4 bright stars in the core) did not become blown out. However, the longer exposures are important to capture the finer detail of the nebulosity.
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| M42 Orion Nebula |
The shorter exposures were important so that the Trapezium (tight group of 4 bright stars in the core) did not become blown out. However, the longer exposures are important to capture the finer detail of the nebulosity.
