- Description: The great Orion Nebula! Actually, several nebula are in this image but
the bright part is the Orion Nebula, also known as Messier 42. The bloated "comma" shaped nebula
on the top edge of M42 is M43. The grouping of bright blue stars below M42 is NGC1980,
a grouping of about 30 stars glowing at magnitude 2.5 so both M42 and this cluster are fairly easy
in binoculars if you can get away from city lights. The large red patch of nebula below M42
is known as NGC1999. Above M42 is a bright blue reflection nebula known as NGC1975, one
of the easier reflection nebula to see visuallly. Embedded in this nebula is the open cluster NGC1977,
a grouping of about 20 stars. Above again is another open cluster, NGC1981, also a grouping of 20
stars. A second shorter exposure of only 1 minute was used to capture detail in the core of M42. The
10 minute exposures I was using had the core burned out it was so bright.
A busy part of the sky!
- Camera: SBIG STF-8300M at -15C
- Filters: Baader RGB filter set
- Scope: William Optics RedCat 51 XL refractor
- Exposure 1: 5 x 10 minutes for red, blue and green
- Exposure 2: 5 x 1 minute short exposures in RGB.
- Location: near Cayley, Alberta
- Date: November 8th, 2021
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