Orion Nebula and the Running Man

[toriqo]

After a lot of help from Ivo (thanks a lot, Ivo, you're great!) with some shots I took with an unmodified Canon 70D and a StarAdventurer mount, I've decided to try my newly acquired skills with a new iOptron iEQ30-Pro mount and a TS ED Refractor.
Living in a heavily light polluted city and unable to see Polaris (blocked by the building I live in), I had to roughly align the mount so I've only managed to track for about 20 seconds without noticeable drifting. So, using ISO 3200 I took 50 frames of 20 seconds each and this came up.

Any advice/constructive criticism is more than welcome. This is my first photo using an advanced mount and tube and my first (correct) attempt at using StarTools.

M42_M43.jpg (254.27 KiB) Viewed 5967 times

[Rowland]

Other than an autoguider or one of these - http://qhyccd.com/PoleMaster.html, drift alignment is an option if you can't see the pole. It takes some time to do but is very accurate. There are different methods. An over simplified explanation is, once the mount is roughly aligned, take a one or two minute exposure and adjust in Alt and / or Az to reduce drift and repeat the process until the stars are round. Best to read up on drift align. Some astrophotographers have done a lot of work in this area.

[toriqo]

Thank you, Rowland. That's exactly what I was doing with my StarAdventurer mount but instead of taking long exposures, I was zooming at 10x the LiveView on my Canon and keeping an eye on the drift.
I also own a PoleMaster which is awesome, I got a chance to test it this weekend and it worked like magic but that still doesn't help when I can't see the pole.

What's left for me is doing a Polar Iterate Align which my mount provides. I'll test it as soon as the sky clears, maybe that'll help.

[Rowland]

OK. All said and done, not an easy target and with an unmodified camera. Don't expect too much in the way of colour and oversaturation begins to distort other features. A personal preference; the green channel could do with trimming back. That smokey grey/blue fringe in M42 is a bit too green.

[toriqo]

I've already bought a Baader filter, today I'm taking my camera to have the IR filter replaced
I've also ordered a CLS CCD clip-filter from Astronomik and I expect things to be different from now on.
Wish me luck!

EDIT: The "too green" comes from overusing HDR's Optimize Hard feature... I'll temper a bit in the future. Thanks for the advice!