M42: November Orion, Revisited

 

(Click for a bigger view!)

I went back and re-processed data from 2020/11/22, used for this image. This time, I included the 10-second exposures, which is how I got the detail in the core of M42 that was blown out in the earlier pic.

I stacked 95x10sec exposures (with 15x10sec darks and the same flats I used for the earlier pic), then took that image and the 47x30sec stacked image, adjusted them so their histograms were similar, then stacked those two. It worked remarkably well; if you look closely at the two images, this one not only has more in the core, it has more detail in a few places, some of the stars are sharper, and importantly, the noise levels are substantially lower.

I think the optics & mechanics I used could still give a little more, if I shot at 200mm instead of 145mm focal length and took more lights, and especially more darks and flats. But I think this is pretty close to the limits of the data I have at this point.