This picture represents first light for my DFK 21AF01.AS colour camera. It is the sum of 20 16-second exposures using the 0.33 focal reducer on my ETX125. This camera incorporates an IR-block filter which cuts off at 700 nm, so should pass light emitted by Hydrogen at 656nm and Sulphur at 672nm. I really bought this camera for the planets, but only Jupiter was available and that was very low in the sky, so I looked for a colourful DSO. M42 was an obvious target. Although not a direct comparison, this picture may be compared with one taken with a webcam or with an Atik 16ic colour camera.
This is a stack from a single AVI with an exposure of 16 seconds. Move your mouse over the image to see a stack made from four different exposures in which the trapezium stars are better resolved but some contrast in the nebula is lost.
Date and Time
18th January 2011 23:04 UT
Camera
DFK 21AF04.AS
Telescope
ETX125 with 0.33 focal reducer, Astronomik CLS filter.
Capture
ICCapture. 16.362 sec exposure, gain 932
Processing
RegiStax. 20 frames stacked, wavelets 1-2=5, histogram 75-255.
Mouseover: Four images stacked, 2, 4, 8, 16 seconds exposure, gamma 1.3, histogram 8-255,
colour saturation increased by 15%.
Home Back to DSOs