Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here - Dante's Inferno!

Well, may be not quite, but when I process an Ha-rich image of the Orion Nebula like the one above, it always makes me think of it.  This is a starless version, which some people prefer to images which are covered in stars, often overpowering the delicate features of the nebula. Personally, I like some stars in an image as without them I think it seems a little artificial.  So I'll often do a bit of star reduction to make them as little less dominant and distracting. Here's a version with some stars and :

And here's a much wider version showing the Running Man Nebula a little better:

The Orion Nebula Reprocessed

I have a new found friend and astro-mentor called Bob Stuart, who I met this year via Facebook in one of the astronomy groups.  Bob very kindly agreed to process one of my shots early shots and since then we've often chatted online, taken part in Leigh Astro Society Zoom meetings and I even bought my MGEN-II standalone guider off him. 

Whenever I moan about the difficulties I'm having in processing shots Bob always wants to have a go at processing it for me - lovely chap! So here's his version of my recent Orion Nebula shot.  It took about three processed versions to het to this but I think you'll agree it's better than anything I've produced by myself.

One day I hope to be able to process all my own shots, but for now it's good to see that my equipment is capable of getting some decent results.

Orion the Mighty Hunter Returns

As we move into Autumn and the skies are getting darker the constellation of Orion has started to reappear in the early mornings. Along with Andromeda, this has got to be one of my most favourite night sky objects and, unlike Andromeda, the constellation as as whole is very easy to see with the naked eye.

The nebula at Orion's centre is less easy to spot, and usually appears as just a faint smudge for most people.  Even through binoculars or a telescope, there is very little colour or detail to see.  But when photographed with a camera, this wonderful object is truly spectacular and it's a joy to see.

This is my first attempt at capturing the magic of Orion this 'season' and over the next few months I hope to get my best shots ever.