M42 - advice please

[StuartT]

The subs were 120s here which is enough to show up the fainter areas of nebulosity nicely, but the core is clearly blown out. If you can suggest any ways I can process my way out of this, I'd be interested to hear them. I assume that once something is overexposed there's not way to bring it back. Perhaps there is a way to shoot some shorter exposure lights and combine them to make an image with more dynamic range? Thoughts welcome.

 

[Marcelofig]

Check out HDR Mutliscale Transform, there are a couple of videos on youtube that explain it. The details are there and HDR MT brings them out.

It also works best using various exposure times, long for the fine outer layers and short for the core.

 

[StuartT]

Check out HDR Mutliscale Transform, there are a couple of videos on youtube that explain it. The details are there and HDR MT brings them out.

It also works best using various exposure times, long for the fine outer layers and short for the core.

Thanks. I've not used that process. (so many processes in PI I've never tried!). Baby steps...

 

[StuartT]

ok, so I have done two more imaging runs at shorter exposures to try and capture the core better. 60s (half the above) still produces a blown out core. Even 30 sec does!

 

[John_Gill]

M42 is a difficult target because of the huge dynamic brightness range, perhaps try the core at 15 second exposures

 

[cmapuk]

as John_Gill said, M42 is not so easy target, but very effective for learning of multiexposure
capturing and HDR processing.

thats what you can get from you first image (JPG) with HDR MT.
legendary star trapezoid is burnt out by long exposure. you have to add some very short exposure captures.
1-5sec i guess, relative to your hardware

 

[StuartT]

as John_Gill said, M42 is not so easy target, but very effective for learning of multiexposure
capturing and HDR processing.

thats what you can get from you first image (JPG) with HDR MT.
legendary star trapezoid is burnt out by long exposure. you have to add some very short exposure captures.
1-5sec i guess, relative to your hardware

nice! thanks. Lots more experimenting to do!