These are wider-angled pictures of M42 taken using my 135-mm SLR lens at f/4 and narrow-band Hα and SII filters.
I have combined these images with Hα assigned to red, and SII assigned to green and blue, giving the SII image a cyan hue.
M42 in light from Hydrogen (red) and Sulphur (green and blue). Details of the individual pictures are given below. Move your mouse over the image to see the designations of the nebulae in this picture. Nair al Saif is the central star in NGC 1980. The Trapezium is a group of four stars at the heart of M42 which is not resolved in this picture.
M42 in light from Hydrogen. In order to bring out the faint nebulosity the centre has become over exposed.
M42 in light from Sulphur.
Date and Time
SII 26th December 2009 00:12 to 00:44 UT
H-alpha 27th December 2009 22:56 to 23:44 UT Camera
Starlight Xpress MX716
Telescope
135-mm SLR lens at f/4 with Astronomik H-α and SII filters
Capture
Star_mx7 90 seconds at full resolution.
Processing
Star-MX7: automatic black adjustment, non-linear enhancement 25, automatic black adjustment again. This was applied to each frame individually.
Irfanview: batch conversion to png format.
Registax5: H-alpha, 21 frames stacked, gamma 1.5, histogram 20-255
SII, 8 frames stacked, histogram 122-255
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