The Great Orion Nebula (M42)

Image taken 21 Feb 2003, 21:00
8 images from c.25 stacked frames of 5 seconds exposure.
Location Tom's back garden, near Southampton
-2°C,  hazy
Statistics Distance:  1500 light years
Equipment used Helios 8" newtonian reflector
Logitech QuickCam Pro 4000 SC Long Exposure Modified (no lens)
K3CCDTools, Registax and Photoshop
Comments

This was our second test of the long exposure web cam.  Having the "shutter" open for longer allows the CCD to collect more light and show dimmer detail - this image was stitched together from several adjacent images, each created in Registax. M43 is also visible around the bright star in the top left quadrant.  We clearly need to get away from the city lights and to cover a much larger region of the sky.
Our various attempts to image M42 as we improved our technique and equipment can be found here



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Page last updated 2003-02-28