The Orion Nebula

Astrophotography - sure we have all taken pictures of the moon, but there is so much still out there.

It’s difficult to get decent results with astrophotography, because there are many factors that hinder good results.
Factors such as, light pollution, poor atmospheric conditions including a full moon.

You don’t need expensive telescopic equipment to achieve good results.
Here is a picture of the Orion Nebula taken at 400mm stopped to f5.6 ISO1600 2 second exposures.

This image consists of 12x 2second exposures stacked; Orion was low on the horizon approximately 25Degrees (not ideal, light pollution was bad.

http://farm3.static.fl​ickr.com …2147009646_4773​f6de81.jpg

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this is excellent

Really nice! What's the purpose of stacking the multiple shots? Just to strengthen the image like the opposite of a dark frame.

I got something pretty similar (but not nearly as good) last night w/my sigma 70-300mm. I was pretty surprised when I pulled it up. I didn't realize there was a nebula there. Mine is much more noisy, and not nearly as clear and only one image of a half second. I'll have to tinker with the stacking. Do you use one of the programs/plugins for astrophotography or just stack them manually?

Sorry for all of the questions. I've only just started tinkering with photos of celestial bodies besides the moon. (just started, like 3 nights worth)

Mars and Saturn are also pretty prominent right now. I've got shots of Mars and Saturn from last night as well.

We're supposed to have clear weather tonight, so I'll probably be out again trying to improve. I've only just recently tried shooting stuff in the sky that's not the moon.

Great shot!

Thanks, it effectively takes light years for the light from the nebula to reach earth, once it reaches the CCD sensor, all the important colour wave lengths are stripped.
The CCD sensor on our modern day SLR's has a filter that blocks in the important Ha (hydrogen alpha) wave length but not all of it.
Stacking the photos emphasises the image wavelengths that were stripped by the filter.
I also ran a dark frame subtraction, basically a duplicate layer but completely black. I then reduced the opacity of the dark frame to get the image above.

But it’s not just about stacking any image; only stack images that look are sharp. Alternatively you can remove the CCD filter on the sensor there are a few sites that show you how to do this, great if you have an old 300D