Hi All,

Although I already have Many Awesome shots of this nebula from my smaller Wide field Scope, both with film and digital.....
I decided to try this high res close-up view using my Homemade 16" diameter scope and my QHY8 Single shot Cooled 6 Mega pixel color CCD camera. Total exposure time was 42 minutes from My observatories in Yellow Springs, Ohio on 01-14-2010

Here is my latest shot of M42 & M43 The Great Orion Nebula a Close-up View,
I captured (5) 5 minute exposures, (5) 2 minute, (5) 1 minute, and (5) 30 sec, and (5) 10 sec exposures, then Stacked the individual groups In Nebulosity Program by exposure time.

I brought the Stacked image groups into Adobe PS for Multiple Exposure Layering & Masking to bring out all the details in the large dynamic range of this image.

Usually the Core Trapezium area & Stars at center of the Orion Nebula are all burned out in most photos...this processing method allowed me 5 different Mask adjustments to get it to look natural and allow you to see the clutch of eggs at center (aka Trapezium stars and the central Nebula region). Keeping both Low dust details to High bright Trapezium stars.

The final image ended up about 102 Megabytes, High res enough to make an Awesome Poster size Print, I re-sized it to a JPEG for web viewing...but should still be high enough res for you to Zoom in a lot to check out all the dusty Nebula Details visible.

This took about 42 minutes to capture, 4 hours to process,.... and another hour for final adjustments and resizing before publishing the image.

Here is the link as well http://www.galacticimages.com/images/M42_M43_CloseupChumackwebLR.jpg

I'm happy with the results...

Best Regards,
John Chumack
www.galacticimages.com