M42 & M43, The Great Orion Nebula

One of the most famous objects in the sky; from most of the world, it can even be seen with the naked eye. Here's a series of my first efforts, then some examples of how the obvious problems were fixed.


First-February 9, 2011. I had taken the scope somewhere, and set up on the grass in someone's front yard, near a wicked floodlight. Boy, did it ruin everything-but it what really set the ball rolling for me; now I was committed to learning how to do post processing AND get better quality shots.

On February 21, I got some much better quality subs, and started getting the feeling that I might actually get the hang of this...

Then, of February 28, I shot a 22 minute set, and started really getting the hang of the post work. Shots like this are typically composites of several exposures; short for the bright central area, and progressively longer to the lower right. This was NOT done like that; it's simply 44 30-second exposures and some PhotoShop trickery.