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The Orion Nebula in HDR [OC]
(live.staticflickr.com)
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Although the Orion Nebula is a popular beginner astrophotography target, it can be difficult to shoot because of the bright core. Combining images with different exposure lengths into an HDR image is necessary in order to properly expose for the faint dust surrounding M42 and the bright nebulosity near the trapezium cluster in the core. I opted to go for a more subtle HDR look with this one, which I think is more visually pleasing than some other overcooked HDR images (aka my previous attempt at it). Also for those interested I made a short time lapse of my telescope in action photographing this. Captured on January 22, 23, and February 7th, 2021 from a Bortle 6 zone (Probably higher local bortle level due to streetlamp at the south end of my driveway)
Places where I host my other images:
Instagram | Flickr
Equipment:
TPO 6" F/4 Imaging Newtonian
Orion Sirius EQ-G
ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro
Skywatcher Quattro Coma Corrector
ZWO EFW 8x1.25"/31mm
Astronomik LRGB+CLS Filters- 31mm
Astrodon 31mm Ha 5nm, Oiii 3nm, Sii 5nm
Agena 50mm Deluxe Straight-Through Guide Scope
ZWO ASI-120MC for guiding
Moonlite Autofocuser
Acquisition: 5 hours 54 minutes (Camera at Unity Gain, -20°C)
L- 109x120" + 50x15" + 50x5"
R- 23x120" + 25x15"
G- 23x120" + 25x15"
B- 22x120" + 25x15"
Darks- 30
Flats- 30 per filter
Capture Software:
PixInsight Processing:
BatchPreProcessing
StarAlignment
Blink
ImageIntegration
DrizzleIntegration per stack per channel (2x, Var β=1.5)
HDRComposition per filter to make 64-bit HDR images
DynamicCrop
DynamicBackgroundExtraction
Luminance:
EZ Deconvolution
EZ Denoise
STF applied via HistogramTransformation to make nonlinear
RGB:
ChannelCombination to combine monochrome R, G, and B HDR stacks into color image
DynamicBackgroundExtraction
PhotometricColorCalibration
SCNR to partially remove greens
HSV repair to saturate clipped star cores
Linked STF applied via HistogramTransformation to make nonlinear
Nonlinear:
LRGBCombination to add lum image as a luminance layer to the RGB image
CurveTransformation to adjust lightness, contrast, and saturation
ACDNR
LocalHistogramTransformation
HistogramTransformation to slightly stretch image
Another Curve for saturation boost
EZ Star Reduction
Resample to 78%
Annotation
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