This is not your typical shot of M42/M43. Not that the images seen on the web are bad. Quite the contrary, the great majority of them are outstanding with their superb detail and color. Kudos to all the talented artists that turn out Hubble quality images. I understand and admire all the effort that goes into an image.

No, not me. I'm quite unorthodox. I do put a lot of effort into my imaging, at least most of the time. But, I use a color planetary camera for my deep sky images. I capture in my back yard, with LP so severe my unprocessed moon shots are a puke color, and have neighbors who insist on burning dozens of floodlights to turn night brighter than day. I don't strive for Hubble type quality, but I do like to turn out a good image.

This image was taken with my AT72ED semi-APO using the Astro Tech focal reducer / field flattener. Why mono? Why not! I captured 25 good frames at 17 seconds exposure each. My polar alignment was not the best, making the alignment program PIPP work hard, but doing a great job. The resulting video file was then stacked with RegiStax 6, nothing else done to the image.

Wow, I even impressed myself with this one. Can you tell I like it? I hope y'all like it too.

Ed D