My NIKON Coolpix P1000, ORION NEBULA M42 Processing ...

 

 

The P1000 was piggiback on my 10" LX200 Classic.

Polar alignment was done very seriously over 2 nights through the scope equipped with a DMK31 using the nice software called WCS in Trail mode
(BTW I cannot aim to Polaris because of building !)
Download WCS here : http://wcs.ruthner.at/index-en.php

Pictures of the setup P1000 / Astronomical mount (LX200 & also shown on EQ6)

     

P1000 fixed on 2 rails and a movable platform on LX200 to be able to equilibrate ... Mars in background !

            

P1000 fixed on a platform on EQ6 mount. Different holes to be able to equilibrate ... Better for Moon shots because camera of orientation.

 

2 RAWs, (1848 & 1849), were selected among a dozen for nice round stars (gusts of wind created elongated star images!).

Here is the download link to zipped file ->% RAWs

Install & run Capture NX-D Ver.1.5.0

Load each NRW and adjust just a few parameters (green arrow) to see the potential !!

Save as TIF 16b uncompressed (Yellow arrow)
Each converted image will be 95 MB !

Install and run DSS (DeepSkyStacker)

Input the 2 TIFF images as source files and stack them ...
At the end set saturation at about 10-20 and align vertically all R,G,B colors in the middle of the ramp with the sliders.

Save as uncompressed TIF.

Use RegiStax6 to add some noise reduction adjust R,G,B individually in the Histogram window.

Finally use nice Irfanview "AutoadjustColors" and "Shift-G" function to finalize the JPG ...