The Orion Nebula (M42)

[Levina de Ruijter]

.....

[gjl711]

Very nice image.

[DonR]

Nice, Levina, much better than my early attempts!

There's plenty you can do with an unmodified 40D. At first I thought I would need to get my 350D modified, but I haven't done it and I have come to realize that while modifying the camera certainly increases the sensitivity to higher wavelengths, it is by know means required to achieve good photos.

Here is an example of a subject that's hard to capture with an unmodified DSLR, especially under light polluted skies. I took this one with my unmodified 350D and a broadband light pollution filter, from Bortle Class 5 (Orange) skies. The LP filter is required for this subject unless you have very dark skies, but obviously the camera modification is not required.

http://www.pbase.com/dtreed/image/120230949/large.jpg

[Nighthound]

Nice, Levina, much better than my early attempts!

There's plenty you can do with an unmodified 40D. At first I thought I would need to get my 350D modified, but I haven't done it and I have come to realize that while modifying the camera certainly increases the sensitivity to higher wavelengths, it is by know means required to achieve good photos.

Here is an example of a subject that's hard to capture with an unmodified DSLR, especially under light polluted skies. I took this one with my unmodified 350D and a broadband light pollution filter, from Bortle Class 5 (Orange) skies. The LP filter is required for this subject unless you have very dark skies, but obviously the camera modification is not required.

Very well said Don. I've yet to modify any of my DSLRs and I have some I haven't even used for daytime in a while. I simply don't see the need. Not a single image in my gallery was taken with a modified camera, sure they could be much better but to do so I'd save for a dedicated/cooled CCD. I'm satisfied with what can be had with the stock Canon DSLRs, after all they weren't designed for this and yet they perform very well.

[mpistone]

No image up top anymore (?)
But Don that's a great shot! Mind sharing how you did it? (focal length, number of exposures, etc?)

[DonR]

Thanks, Matt. That's 37 exposures totaling 216 minutes, taken on two different nights. Twenty of the exposures were four minutes at ISO 800, and 17 exposures were eight minutes at ISO 400. All exposures were made through an original Orion Skyglow LP filter. Focal length was 1000mm, at f/4.9. After stacking the image was cropped substantially because of rotational alignment differing on the two nights, so the FOV presented here could be achieved at about 1400mm focal length.

I hope Levina didn't withdraw his image because I posted an image in his thread. I usually don't do that, but his original post suggested that the 40D "needs" to be modified for good sensitivity at higher wavelengths, and my experience doesn't reflect that. Many people would be skeptical though of claims for good results with unmodified DSLR's on faint red subjects without data to back up the claims. There's no question that the modified DSLR's pick up more light in the highest visible wavelengths and in the short infrared, but decent results can still be obtained with these cameras out of the box.

Levina's M42 image was really quite good, especially for someone just starting out in astrophotography as he indicated he was.

Don

[Celestron]

Where is the image of the OP ??

[ejicon]

darn... got in here too late :)