The image you see is a composite of six images, each shot at f/13 (my Celestron C-8's fixed focal value) and on my Nikon D5500 using an ISO of 1600 with a setting for a timed exposure of 30-seconds for each image (I also used the 10-second self timer to shoot rather than click the camera and possibly cause shutter shake).


My quest for the night was the Constellation of Orion the Hunter, one of the most visible and known constellations in the night sky this time of year. And last night it was in a perfect position after the women's bike race I watched in Australia. The moon had not risen so I had a marvelous dark sky to the south.


The six images were all stitched into one composite image using Microsoft ICE (Image Composite Editor), which is free by the way, possibly the best panorama composite editor out there too, better than Photoshop's in my opinion.
After working up the single image, I cropped the image to only expose Orion and brought the image into Photoshop CS for post-processing. Here I adjusted color, tone, and contrast, plus I removed JPEG artifacts and digital noise using Photoshop's neutral filters. I did not used a star-filter either, the star tracks from the brighter stars are a natural phenomena for long exposures.

Cazzie