I did manage to image M42 from the terrace at around 2AM with the filter in place and with a focal reducer sensor distance of 110mm. This configuration gives a 0.62x reduction. On a self induced downer I selected the 3104 pixel instead of 4144 pixel format thus robbing myself of knowing how well flattening occurs out to the farthest edge of the sensor.
The processed image for an averaged series of 15s exposures follows. There is some coma evident in the stars in the upper right corner. However some star elongation due to guiding errors is also evident. Polar alignment on the terrace is fairly crude proving quite challenging to the auto-guider.
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| M42 |
A note about post processing: This series of overnight M42 exercises has allowed me to greatly simplify my post processing. I use Paintshop Pro X9*. The above image was achieved in three or four steps with the first step a script that I will outline in the next post.
* I recently upgraded to Paintshop Pro 2021. I'll talk about that in a future post.
