Title: Orion the Hunter
Date: Imaged 23 February 2019 (8:30 pm)
Location: Halifax, NS
Equipment: Tripod-mounted Canon Rebel T3 DSLR at ISO-1600 with kit lens at 34mm f/4.5; 8 sec exposures.
Processing: A series of 50 subs (8 sec each) and 20 darks were captured in RAW16 format and converted to TIFF format using Canon’s Digital Photo Professional, then stacked using DeepSkyStacker. Photoshop CS2 was used for to adjust levels and color balance/saturation, as well as for noise removal. StarTools was used to remove gradients. Microsoft Photo was used to tweak clarity, contrast, highlights, shadows, and exposure of the final jpg image.
Comments: This winter constellation is one of my favorites. The Orion Nebula (M42) in Orion’s Sword is an amazing sight, whether seen through binoculars or a telescope eyepiece. This image of the Hunter was captured on a particularly cold evening!