M42 - The great bird - "Plastic Meadator" 150/750 + ZWO ASI

Hi Sam,

Hi All,

Here is my last picture with ASI 385 on the "great bird" of Orion.

It's a mix of short exposures 350 ms, 500 ms and 1 sec raw images taken

during 3 partial nights before arrival of clouds.

I choose my home-made little OTA, called "plastic Meadator", a Newtonian

150/750 made with a plastic 200 mm PVC hose and second-hand Meade optics.

With short 750 mm focal length I expect to have maximum field of view... But

M42 is too large !! :

Processing was not easy, this nebula is weel-know for it's high dynamic

range !

SETUP :

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Newtonian "Plastic Meadator 150 mm F/D 5, on EQ-6 Mount

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ZWO ASI 385 with Ir/UV-cut filter,

Acquisition software : Sharcap 3.0.

3200 x 0.35 second. Gain = 296. 07/03/2018

5440 x 1 second. Gain = 383. 25/02/2018

7716 x 0.5 second. Gan = 330. 26/02/2018

Darks.

Visual sort out of raw images.

Registration with DSS.

Processing and post-processing with Iris + Photoshop.

Final image, at 100% full size:

~~Albéric~~