Tuesday, November 12, 2013

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 Orion Nebula (M42)
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. 

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