It's Been A Long Time Coming

but we finally got some great clear skies.  With the wind coming from the Southwest it helped with the transparency and thankfully didn't effect the imaging.  My G11 was holding to scopes that night, my NP101, and my friends AP130.  I used my modded Canon Xsi (450D) with an IDAS LPS-P2 filter controlled by Backyard EOS @1600iso.  I captured 16  images of M42 using my Tele Vue NP101

The Great Orion Nebula

     For the past few weeks I have been doing some upgrades to my computer.  I switched to Windows 10 from 7, and upgraded to Photoshop CC.  These changes have greatly improved the speed of my computer and processing.
     I had captured 16 images of M42.  4 x 5sec, 4 x 30sec, and 8 x 330sec.  I didn't take any Darks, of Flats.  The first thing I did was to open all 16 images into CC Camera Raw and adjusted  the colour balance, vignetting,  exposure, contrast, and blackness.  I also did a quick crop to clean up the edges.  The next step was to open all the images with Photoshop CC.  Using Statistics, under scripts, I stacked all 16 images together.  I have tried this before but never had results like this.  I couldn't have asked for anything better, I was blown away.  This was my first time using CC, and man was I impressed.  The next steps where my normal processing techniques.  I used "Color Mancers" Boundary Noise Reduction to clean up the noise.  I highly recommend it, It is free, and I haven't seen anything better.   When I look at this completed image,  I have to say this is my best image yet.
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