My first real photo of the Orion Nebula looked like a gray blob, now I can see the dust lanes

A year back, my shots of M42 were just fuzzy gray smudges with my old DSLR and kit lens. I saved up and got a used star tracker last fall, and the difference is crazy. Now I stack 90 second exposures and the reds and blues actually show up, plus those dark dust clouds in the wings. The big change was learning to take calibration frames, dark and flat frames, which I never did before. It took a whole clear night in my backyard to get enough data, but it was worth it. Anyone else have a target that went from a blob to a real picture after a gear or process change?

3 comments

3 Comments

hollyg5924d ago

That's cool about the dust lanes, but honestly I still love my old gray blob shots. They feel more real to me than the super processed ones.

matthew_hart2524d ago

Totally get that. There's a weird charm to the fuzzy gray blobs that feels like you're actually looking out a window. The new shots are amazing, but sometimes all that processing makes it look like a video game background. Give me a noisy, honest blob any day of the week.

luna89119d ago

It’s just a picture of space. Both versions show the same thing, just with different tools. People get so worked up about which one is more “real” or “honest.” At the end of the day, it’s a cool thing to look at, not a test of character. Enjoy the blob or enjoy the processed shot, but maybe don’t make a whole philosophy out of it.