Shot from my back yard observatory in Fremont Michigan over 2 nights, the 10th and 12th September 2010, using a Canon 5D Mark II and consisting of 4 x 15 min exposures and 6 x 5 min exposures.

Thanks for looking.

Clear Skies

Terry

Date of Shoot 10th and 12th September 2010

Camera: modified Canon 5D Mark II

4x15 min sub exposures at 400ISO with flat and dark frames.

6x5 min sub exposures at 100ISO with flat and dark frames.

Scope: TMB130SS F7 Refractor using WO/TMB 2.7" Field Flattener.

Auto-guided with Orion Auto Guider on Stellarvue 10x60

Mount: Mountain Instruments MI-250 (pier mounted)

Image Acquired using Nebulosity II, stacked with Deep Sky Stacker and processed with Photoshop CS3.

This image was selected and appeared in "Snapixel Summers End Edition 2010"

issuu.com/snapixel/docs/7_-_summer_s_end

Astronomy.com Picture of the Day, April 2011 astronomy.com/Multimedia/Picture of Day.aspx?id={D524BD08-DEAA-4783-9E6B-71BA6CD8F87C}&page=0&category=&keywords=Terry+Hancock

Please take a moment to view my very latest image of M42 posted on the 8th December 2012 Here

This is the Running Man, a beautiful refection nebula that lies just a half degree to the north of the M42, the Orion Nebula. The field of view of my imaging has allowed it be captured in isolation from the much brighter M42.

As this object has a lot of signal, I found that I could capture it with a small number of exposures.

Location: Central Victorian Highlands, Victoria, Australia

Dates: December 2019

Telescope: AG Optical Systems 0.3 meter iDK,

Focal length 2121 mm

Camera: mono FLI ML16200 with a Loadstar X2 on an Astrodon MOAG off-axis guider.

Adaptive Optics: SXV-AO-LF

Observatory: Scopedome

Acquisition: Voyager

Integration frames: 11 x 240sec luminance, 8 x240sec Red, 11 x 240sec Green, 8 x 240sec Blue.

Plate size: 44' x 35'

Most people are familiar with the Orion Nebula, but I decided to focus on a nearby, often overlooked reflection nebula, The Running Man Nebula. The intense blue comes from the galactic dust reflecting the light of the brightest star in the centre of the image. The 'running man' is pink due to the hydrogen gases being ionized by the ultraviolet energy. Hydrogen-alpha is usually red but the hydrogen-beta's blue colour turns it pink. I used five different filters to capture this colourful object. They were, red, green, blue and also hydrogen-alpha and hydrogen-beta filters. The turbulent gases and dust in the upper right of the image separates the running man from the famous Orion Nebula only a half of a degree away.

4 hours of data taken with the Ceravolo300mm astrograph at f/9 and CCD camera SBIG STX 16803.

Orion complex

Behind this recognizable constellation are countless objects and regions of interest, immense clouds of gas and dust keep behind them new generations of forming stars. Visible in the center of the image are the Flame and Horse's Head nebulae, on the right side within Orion's Sword are the Great M42 Nebula and the Running Man Nebula. The reddish color present in a large amount denotes the presence of ionized hydrogen whose emission is characteristic of these star-forming regions

Taken at bortle 2 skies at cochiguaz, Coquimbo, Chile

Gear and image:

81x3min 135mm f/2 ISO 1600 with the Canon 6D and Samyang 135 f/2

29x2min at 135mm f/2 ISO 1600 with the 7D Mark II and Samyang 135 f/2, process Pixinsight 1.8.9, Photoshop CC 2023 and Topaz Denoise

Composed with 2021 images of the Orion sword for extra detail of highlights

Mount Skywatcher Star adventurer

The great Orion nebula and the running man nebula in a wide angle view.

Orion and Running Man Nebula

Captured February 2020

Approx 2.5 hours in RGB.

Skywatcher Esprit 120ED

ZWO ASI1600MM PRO with 8 pos filter wheel

Astrodon Gen 2 RGB filters

EQ6R Pro mount guided with QHY 5L-II-M and mini guide scope

Captured with N.I.N.A., PHD2, Polemaster

All processing in Pixinsight

Orion constellation widefield using Nikon D750 on iOptron Skytracker.

33x30sec and 20x90sec exposures stacked together.

Great Nebula in Orion (M42) with Running Man nebula (NGC 1973/5/7), Horsehead (IC434) and Flame nebulae (NGC 2024), M78 and part of the Bernard's Loupe are in the frame.

This is not my first image of the beautiful Orion Nebula and probably will not be my last. It was captured on a field night with Macarthur Astronomical Society, despite several equipment issues I had to deal with.

Object Details:

Messier 42, NGC 1976, LBN 974.

Constellation: Orion.

Visual magnitude: +4.0

Apparent diameter: 85 x 60.0 arc-min. (about 2 Lunar Diameters).

Actual diameter: 35 light years.

Distance: 1,400 light years.

Altitude: 41° above NE horizon.

Also visible:

Also visible in this image are: NGC 1973, NGC 1975, and NGC 1977, the Running Man Nebula; the smaller bright nebula, M43; open cluster NGC 1981.

Image:

Exposure: 52 x 90 sec = 78 min. Live stacked.

Gain 300

Date: 2018-12-03 commencing approx 11.15 pm

Location: The Oaks, NSW.

Sky: semi-dark rural.

Cloud: clear.

Moon: no.

Image acquisition software: SharpCap.

Image post-processing: GIMP.

Cropping: no.

Imaging log:

[ZWO ASI071MC Pro]

Debayer Preview=On

Output Format=FITS files (*.fits)

Binning=1

Capture Area=4944×3284

Colour Space=RAW8

Hardware Binning=Off

Turbo USB=80(Auto)

Flip=None

Frame Rate Limit=Maximum

Gain=223

Exposure=90

Timestamp Frames=Off

White Bal (B)=56(Auto)

White Bal (R)=39(Auto)

Brightness=64

Temperature=5.3

Cooler Power=100

Target Temperature=-10

Cooler=On

Auto Exp Max Gain=300

Auto Exp Max Exp M S=30000

Auto Exp Target Brightness=100

Mono Bin=Off

Anti Dew Heater=Off

Banding Threshold=35

Banding Suppression=0

Apply Flat=None

Subtract Dark=None

#Black Point

Display Black Point=0

#MidTone Point

Display MidTone Point=0.5

#White Point

Display White Point=1

TimeStamp=2018-12-03T13:43:15.2148775Z

SharpCapVersion=3.2.5871.0

TotalExposure(s)=4680

StackedFrames=52

Gear:

Imaging telescope: Skywatcher Esprit 120ED Super APO triplet refractor.

Focal length: 840 mm, focal ratio: f/7.

Imaging camera: ZWO ASI 071 MC Pro

Guiding: off (guide camera malfunction).

Telescope mount: SkyWatcher EQ6-R.

Polar aligning method: QHYCCD PoleMaster.

Polar alignment error: estimated 4-6 arc-min.

Field flattener: yes; filter: no.

Observing Notes:

Well, I’ve had nearly a year of frustration with my SkyWatcher EQ6 mount, which has been giving me alignment errors since January. It’s been looked at twice by the dealer and the Australian Skywatcher supplier, Tasco. They found nothing wrong and I’ve had mixed results since getting it back.

I thought it was resolved but it played up again on this occasion and I ended up manually locating this easy object so I would not come away empty-handed. I now have reason to believe it was a power supply issue and have since bought a replacement battery to power the mount.

Sharpcap livestack performed well, once I was able to begin imaging.

The Great Orion Nebula (M42) is a true showpiece in the night sky. It is easily visible to the naked eye as a fuzzy patch in the sword of Orion, and is a beautiful sight in telescopes of all sizes. It lies fairly close to our part of the galaxy, lying some 1500 light years distant. The center portion contains a tight grouping of stars called the Trapezium. M43 lies just above the Trapezium region, and another bright reflection nebula called The Running Man Nebula is near the top of this frame.

This image is a blend of RGB data with Hydrogen-Alpha data. The RGB was blended with the H-alpha to form an artificial luminance layer, and the H-alpha was blended into the red channel of the colour layer.

Takahashi Sky 90 at f/4.5

SBIG STL-4020M (self-guided)

Takahashi EM-200

Hutech LPS filter

H-Alpha: 2h20m (20 minute subexposures)

RGB: 25m, 35m, 10m (5 minute subexposures)

Processed with Maxim/DL and Photoshop CS3

Noel Carboni's Astronomy Tools

The H-Alpha data by itself is here.

Anyone who knows the night sky knows about the biggest, brightest nebula visible from the northern hemisphere - the Great Orion Nebula. Afterall, it's one of the very few nebulae that are so big & bright, you can spot it with the naked eye. It's also part of the Orion Constellation that dominates the winter sky - especially easy to spot with the 3 star Belt of Orion. By the way, scientists believe the Orion Nebula is a stellar nursery with a big nebulous cocoon that's giving birth to as many as a thousand stars.

With the Orion Nebula (appearing in the bottom) and the Running Man Nebula (top), this area has some wonderful color that comes from huge clouds of dust and gas. What I wasn't expecting was the green color appearing on the edge of the Orion Nebula (showing up naturally in the one shot color images).

I captured this image (from my home in Colorado) using iTelescope.net's T2 telescope based in Mayhill, New Mexico. I captured 38 images over 4 nights (in a 3x1 mosaic) and processed them with Astro Pixel Processor, Photoshop and Topaz Denoise.

Exposure Settings

• 3x1 mosaic (14 images left, 12 center, 12 right)

• 38 images (all full color)

• Exposure Time: 5 minutes (each image)

• Total Exposure Time: 3 hours, 10 minutes

Telescope Optics & Camera

• Optics: Takahashi TOA-150 (T2, Refractor)

• Focal Length: 1,105 mm

• CCD: QHY268C "One Shot Color" - 26 mp

Open cluster NGC 1981 at the top then down to the Running Man reflection/emission nebula then finally M42 and M43 below.

Its actually been 2 years since I last tackled this subject with my 480mm f/6 scope.

The 2021 plan was to acquire about an hour of 1 minute subs at ISO800.

Previous effort in March 2019 here:

www.flickr.com/photos/16271433@N02/47180403212/in/album-7...

Before that in March 2015 here:

www.flickr.com/photos/16271433@N02/16373842900/in/album-7...

480/80mm f/6 Altair Starwave triplet refractor.

Altair Planostar 1.0 x FF with 2 inch IDAS LPS D1 filter

Astro-modified Canon 80D at ISO800; 62 x 1 minute subs

NEQ6 pro mount with Rowan belt drives -2 star align.

Camera control with Backyard EOS

Camera sensor temperature (external battery): 5-6c

50 dark frames from dark library (temperature selected)

50 flat frames (electroluminescent panel @ 1/80s)

50 bias frames

Post processed in PixInsight 1.8.8 and Photoshop CC 2021.

Local parameters:

Temp: -1` - 0c

Humidity: 50%

Pressure: 1017 hPa

Light Pollution and Weather:

SQM (L) at end of session (2355 hrs UT) =20.00 mag/arcsec2.

Clear, all subs good.

Polar Alignment:

QHY Polemaster alignment -

Error measured by PHD2= 1.3 arc minute.

RA drift + 1.82 arcsec/min

Dec drift + 0.35 arcsec/min

Guiding:

PHD2 guiding with ZWO ASI290mm/Altair Starwave 206/50mm guider. Partially Dithered.

RA RMS error 0.98 arcsec, peak error -3.59 arcsec

Dec RMS error 0.81 arcsec, peak error 2.6 arcsec

Astrometry:

Center (RA): 05h 35m 38.243s

Center (Dec): -05° 15' 13.000"

Size: 1d 16m 51.7s x 1d 46m 14.7s

Image scale: 1.59 arcsec/pixel

Focal distance: 478.76mm

Pixel Size 3.7 microm

Orion nebula M42 with Running man nebula on the left with the associated interstellar gas clouds.Gear setup: WO 73 Zenthstar, iOptron GEM45 guided with ZWO mini guidescope and ZWO120MM-S, ZWO 2600MC @-10, Optolong L-Pro filter. Light subs 32 x 180sec, 20 Flats, 20 Darks, 50 Bias. Total integration 1.5 hour. youtube.com/shorts/7yXNFzra40E?feature=share

A highlight of the winter sky, the bright core of the Orion Nebula has always been a favorite of mine for backyard observation. Astrophotography reveals a much broader, complicated and colorful structure, and my wide shot also captured the companion Running Man Nebula.

We're teaching Urban Astrophotography 102: Deep Sky starting December 2nd at New York City's Amateur Astronomers Association. Details for the 6 session Zoom course can be found here

aaa.org/event/urban-astrophotography-102/2021-12-02/

AAA.org is a nonprofit science organization; the course requires membership plus a $60 registration fee.

Tech Stuff: Borg 55FL/ZWO ASI 1600 MC/IDAS LPS D2 filter/iOptron CubePro mount. 32 minutes of 4 second exposures processed in PixInsight and ACDSee. From my yard 10 miles north of New York City.

Not the full constellation, doing some processing while i wait for the next moonless and clear night. This was a stack of 180 exposures in class 7 skies. Managed to capture the flame nebula, orion nebula and a faint part of the running man nebula. This was with a skywatcher mini tracker. Lots more improvement to come as i gain more experience....

This is a photo of the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, which is a large group of bright nebulae, dark clouds, and young stars visible around the Orion constellation. Some of the most noticeable objects in this image include Barnard’s Loop, Orion Nebula, Running Man Nebula, Flame Nebula, Horsehead Nebula, Rosette Nebula, Witch Head Nebula, and the bright colorful stars Betelgeuse, Rigel, Bellatrix, and Saiph, to name a few.

This was shot with the Nikon Z 6 and the NIKKOR Z 58mm f/0.95 S Noct lens. I had to stop the lens down to f/2.8 to get sharp stars without chromatic aberrations. It’s ok by f/1.8, but f/2.8 was even better. I used an iOptron SkyGuider Pro star tracker with counterweight and William Optics alt-az base (better than the iOptron version that comes in the kit). With the star tracker I was able to take 5 minute exposures and get sharp pinpoint stars. I took 8 exposures at 5 minutes each for a total of 40 minutes of capture time. All shots were at f/2.8 and ISO 200.

The exposures were prepped in Lightroom and then stacked in Starry Sky Stacker for even lower noise. I used PixInsight and Photoshop for final processing to remove gradients, balance the background, and bring out the colors and nebulosity.

Visit my website to learn more about my photos and video tutorials: www.adamwoodworth.com

no tracking -- 500 mm / 100 pics / 40 darkframes, 40 biosframes, normal DSLR-equipment (850, sigma sports 4/500), 1 sec, f5.0, ISO 4000;

Deep Sky Stacker and Lightroom

digital enlargement: vertical 8256 to vertical 3900 pix

again from the bathroom window with tripod and a support under the front lens area, live view (no mirror vibrations), light pollution from neigbours ...

nikon Z7 ,420mm,f6, 60-30sec subs

M42 Orion Nebula and Running Man Nebula

Vixen Polarie + Standard Tripod

modified Canon 500d

Lights: 35 x 1 minute

Darks: 12 x 1 minute

iso 1600

f/5.6

70-300mm (300mm)

Aligned and stacked in DeepSkyStacker

Processed in Pixinsight and cs5

Location: Vancouver, BC

Temp: 2°C

06_01_2021

M42 Orion Nebula

20 180s lights

10 60s lights for core

stacked in DSS

Skywatcher ED80

Heq5 Pro

Orion 50mm guidescope

Canon 100d (modded)

First imaging session of the year was a quick one before clouds rolled in...

30x30sec

Manually aligned and processed in PS(my computer crashes with Deep Sky Stacker)

ISO1600

William Optics Z61

Sky-Watcher Star-adventurer

Canon 80D unmodified

Photograph by Doug Griffith: www.flickr.com/photos/138256409@N08

Well friends, the journey and the story continues as you can see from this photo taken today.

As some of you know, I have wanted my own a full-featured equatorial mount for Deep Sky Astrophotography for a long time now and this week something happened that only further increased my determination to get one. That experience was me having at my disposal my astro-buddy Doug's 5-hour stack of quality images of the Orion and Running Man Nebula to play with.

I posted the processed image in some astro-forums the other day. Doug took these images last week on his new Sky-Watcher EQ6-R mount. This is the very same mount that I also bought and briefly owned this past summer - the one I got a hernia moving and had to send back because it was just far too big and heavy for me. In fact, Doug and I bought our mounts at the same time during the same sale in June, the difference is that Doug is a much bigger, stronger guy than me and I got a hernia and he didn't. I'm glad for him.

Well, after spending 3 days in heaven this week with his M42-M43 images I finally said, "That's it, I can't wait any longer I MUST have my own EQ mount and I must have it NOW!"

So after convincing my dear wife of 47 years that this would be a wonderful thing for her husband (and promising not to get another hernia), I went out and bought a brand new Sky-Watcher HEQ5 Pro on sale. This mount is a solid little mount that guides really well and is used by many folks to produce fabulous astro-images. It's the little brother of the EQ6 and EQ6-R and weighs about half as much, and It's perfect for me.

Anyways, it's a happy day at Rudy's house today so I thought I would invite you all to the party!!

Cheers,

Rudy

The Great Orion Nebula (M42) and the Horsehead Nebula (Barnard 33) - a Winter sky classic. The Flame Nebula and Running Man Nebula are also captured, as well as dust clouds in the surrounding area. Captured on 1/3/22 with a Nikon D750 and Nikon 300mm f/2.8. 20 x 5' exposures shot at f/4 and ISO 1600. Two shorter exposures were captured for the bright Trapezium core at the center of M42.

Hope you enjoy!

The Orion Nebula, and NGC-1977 (Running Man Nebula) to the left.

I've been working on the settings of my new a deep sky colour camera and this is the first time I've felt I've managed to get the balance right on gain and exposure to achieve the best results from my light polluted skies. Both the bright Great Orion nebula (M42) and the faint Running Man nebula (top right) are clear in this image, which is a stack of 24x180seconds. For this image I haven't used any flats or darks and just relied on post processing.

Peter

Equipment used:

ZWO ASI071MC Pro colour CMOS camera, 130mm triplet APO refractor, EQ6 mount, autoguided with a ZWO ASI120MM mono CMOS camera and an off-axis guider.

Prime Time for the Orion Nebula

It’s Orion season. One of the most popular and easily recognized constellations is Orion, the Hunter. In the Northern Hemisphere, easily visible in the city in the southeast at dark and rising to above 50 degrees before 10 pm (early February). Just under the three belt stars of Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka, is Messier 42, the Great Orion Nebula, one of the brightest, most observed, and most photographed nebula in the sky. It is easily visible to the naked eye, even in the suburbs of large cities.

Even though the nebula is easily seen with the naked eye it was never cataloged in any historical records before the invention of the telescope. About 130 AD Ptolemy catalogued the brightest stars in the nebula, the Trapezium, as one star, but failed to mention the nebulosity. In the late 1500s Tycho Brahe and then Johann Bayer in 1603 also catalogued the Trapezium stars and Bayer designated them Theta Orionis, but no mention of the nebulosity. Galileo observed the Trapezium with his telescope in 1610 and again in 1617 when he declared it to be a triple but again failed to mention the nebulosity.

The first published report of the nebulosity was by the Jesuit astronomer Johann Baptist Cysatus of Lucerne in 1619 although his discovery was with a telescope in 1611. His publication compared it to a comet he discovered in 1618. The first published drawing was by Christian Huygens in 1656 and was credited with its rediscovery along with Edmond Halley who included it in a list of six nebulae in 1716, and by Charles Messier who listed it as object number 42 in his catalog. Messier first noted the nebula in 1769 along with 3 of the 4 stars in the Trapezium.

The first spectrograph of the Orion nebula was done by William Huggins in 1865, which revealed its gaseous nature. In 1880 Henry Draper took the first photograph of the nebula with an 11-inch refractor telescope, maybe the first historical instance of deep sky astrophotography. Lick Observatory took an excellent photograph of the nebula in 1895. And then Bob Fugate took this photo from his backyard in 2021.

A few more facts. The nebula is about 1400 light years from Earth and is about 24 light years in diameter. It is part of a much larger cloud of gas and dust that extends over 10 degrees, covering about half of the entire constellation of Orion. This large nebula is called the Orion Molecular Complex (OMC). The OMC is several hundreds of light years in extent and includes the Horsehead Nebula, the Flame Nebula, Barnard’s Loop, and M 78, the reflection nebula. I have images of all these areas which may be the subject of a future post.

The Orion Nebula is a massive star nursery. The youngest and brightest stars are estimated to be less than 100,000 years old. Some are particularly massive and emit enormous amounts of ultra violet light, creating the very bright fluorescent glow of the nebula. If you look closely you can just make out the Trapezium, 4 young stars forming the bright core of the nebula and responsible for the majority of the ionizing radiation that lights up the nebula.

Just to the north of the Orion Nebula is a grouping of reflection nebulae designated NGC 1973, 1975, and 1977. Sometimes this area is called the “Running Man Nebula.” If you look at the purple region of this nebula you might see a figure resembling a two legged creature (seems to have pretty long arms for a human) running with its arms outstretched, maybe chasing something in front of it. The light we see from this area is reflected light from the bright blue stars just in front of the dust cloud.

This image was made in my backyard in the NE heights of Albuquerque, NM over two nights in November, 2021 using my Takahashi FSQ 106 telescope, ZWO ASI6200 MM camera, and Chroma filters including L, R, G, B, and Ha, and Paramount ME, unguided. This is a visible light image and shows the true color of the nebula and surrounding dust. The red channel in the RGB image was only slightly enhanced with data from the Ha filter. The total exposure time for all images was only 3 hours and 12 minutes but individual exposures ranged from 1 second to 300 seconds in an attempt to capture the enormous dynamic range from the dust to the brightest stars and to preserve the detail in the core of the nebula in the vicinity of the Trapezium. 326 individual images were used to construct the final high dynamic range image in PixInsight with level and contrast adjustments made in Photoshop.

Another magnificent example of Nature’s Art.

M42_HDR_LRGBHa_3p2hrs_211106_RQFugate

#Sh2-279 Running man nebula in the Orion constellation

The Orion Nebula Complex is a huge cluster of well-known astronomical objects such as the Great Orion Nebula, the Horsehead Nebula, the Flame Nebula, the Running Man Nebula, Barnard's Loop, m78 and others. Many of these nebulae are about 1500 light-years away, and some of them are active star-forming zones. Above and to the right of the center of the image you can see three stars in a line - Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka - which are familiar to many people, forming an asterism called Orion's Belt.

Because the human eye is unable to accumulate light like a camera, only the Great Orion Nebula (below and to the right of center) is visible to the naked eye. In the center of the image is the Horsehead Nebula, a cluster of dark dust on the background of an ionized hydrogen cloud. Just above it is the Flame Nebula. Above and just to the left of the center of the image is the beautiful blue reflecting nebula m78. Wrapping around the left side of the frame is the red nebula Barnard's Loop. It is so large that it surrounds the Great Orion Nebula and Orion's Belt. Its diameter is about 1200 arcminutes. For comparison, the angular diameter of a full moon is about 30 arcminutes, which means that Barnard's Loop could contain up to 40 full Moons lined up in a row.

36x300" LRGB

Samyang 135mm f/2 (f/2.8 used) lens

ZWO ASI2600MM camera

iOptron HAE43c mount

This image was captured back towards the beginning of one very cold January night/morning on top of one of many Wiltshire hills. The image depicts Orion's Belt (M42 or Messier 42)as well as the Running Man Nebula (Sh2-279). With the three stars (from top), are Mintaka, Alnilam and Alnitak, which is also home to the Horsehead Nebula. The bright star towards the bottom right is Rigel and somewhere just above would be the Witches Head.

This was my second straight night out. I wanted to make the most of the clear night conditions. It would turn out that, compared to the previous night, the sky was not perfectly clear. It took me awhile to figure this out as I had thought that condensation was building up on my lens even with the lens heater on. However it turned out that the issue was far beyond my reach.

Funny enough I had brought along a filter (that I'm yet to use) that would create the effect depicted

Like many, I remember seeing the 3 star Belt Of Orion in the night sky ever since I was a little kid. After all, it's one the most recognizable constellations in the night sky. And for me, hearing stories about the giant hunter and his dog Sirius (the brightest star in the night sky) chasing after the seven sisters added even more interest. This super-wide image brings together several of the winter gems of Orion: the Orion Nebula, Running Man Nebula, Flame Nebula, Dark Horse Nebula, and a ton of dust clouds connecting them together.

As many of you know, I've been shooting telescope pictures remotely using iTelescope.net's equipment and when I heard about their new super-wide T80 telescope in Spain, I was curious. It turns out, this telescope has a (big) 26mp cmos camera paired up with the super-wide lens, running under dark skies in the northern hemisphere - features that work well with Orion. I think the narrowband exposures (especially Hydrogen-Alpha) worked well with Orion in revealing more of the details in the dust clouds. After capturing, I processed my calibrated fit images with Astro Pixel Processor, Photoshop, Star Xterminator, Topaz Sharpen and DeNoise AI with StarSpikesPro on the 3 stars in Orion's Belt.

Exposure Settings

• 40 exposures (3 minutes each)

○ Luminance: 10

○ Red: 5

○ Green: 5

○ Blue: 5

○ Hydrogen-Alpha: 5

○ Sulphur: 5

○ Oxygen: 5

• Total Exposure Time: 120 minutes

Telescope Optics & Camera

• Optics: Samyang 135mm f/2.0 ED UMC

• Focal Length: 135 mm

• Mount: Paramount MyT

• CCD: ASI2600MM - 26 mb

• Observatory Location: E-Eye Fregenal de la Sierra, Spain

The next night after successfully imaging the Rosette Nebula, I framed and centered on the Orion Nebula where the whole of "Orion's Sword" fit into the frame at the refractors 500mm focal length.

This exposure of the Orion Nebula region is really just a quick and lazy session since I didn't want to waste a clear night by doing nothing and the scope was already setup and focused so I wouldn't be spending much time on setup. I also didn't have a plan for imaging another object and M42 region is near the Rosette and in the same part of the sky so it seemed like a good idea being a bright and easy object to image.

This image consists of all RGB or OSC (through the IRCut filter) 31x15s, 32x30s, 16x60s, 10x90s, 11x120s ISO1600 subs taken using a full spectrum modded and cooled Canon 40D through 80mm F6.25 refractor.

Target:Orion Nebula M42, diffuse, 1344 ly, De Mairan's Nebula, M43, 1300 ly, emission, Running Man Nebula, Sh2-279, reflection, 1500 ly.

Location:5,11-01-22, St Helens, UK, Bortle 7.

Acquisition:62x 120s Lpro, iso800, Amb 0c, No Moon.

51x 120s Lextreme, iso800, Amb 3c, 69% Moon.

25x each Dark, Bias, Flat, DarkFlat each session.

Total integration 3.8 hours.

Equipment:Altair 60EDF, 1x Flat60, Optolong Lpro, Lextreme, Canon 1200D (astro modified), Skywatcher AZ-GTi, Sirui AM-284-EU.

Guiding:Altair MG32mini, Skywatcher ASI120MMmini.

Software:Astroberry EKOS, INDI, PHD2 on RPi4.

Processing:Affinity Photo, Siril, StarXTerminator, Topaz DeNoise AI.

An image I've wanted since I started deep sky astrophotography back in late 2018.

Orion is one of the most recognisable constellations in the night sky and it is packed full of dust, nebulae and deep sky goodness.

Here I've captured a wide field of Orion's Belt, part of Barnard's loop in the very top left, Messier 78 just under, the flame nebula, the famous horse-head nebula, the Running Man Nebula and the very famous messier 42, the Great Orion Nebula.

Surrounding all these targets is a huge amount of dust lit up by the surrounding stars.

To capture this image I used my portable setup which consists of a 100mm Canon macro lens and a ZWO 533MC camera. This is on a Skywatcher star adventurer. Due to the nature of this setup, I had to do a mosaic (or in conventional photography terms, a panorama) image. This meant that to get a finished image, it took twice as much total exposure time.

I'm extremely happy to finally have this image in my collection and I really hope I can add more to the field of view and more exposure time.

Captured over 3 nights in March 2024. 60s exposures. UVIR cut filter.

Same Image layers as last one

Camera: Canon T4i Modified for higher Ha response.

Telescope: Orion 80mm ED, Field Flatter

Mount: G11 Guided

Exposure: 10 exposure of 90, 120, 150, 180 seconds @ISO 800

Each Exposure batch was partially processed and then merged as layers in Photoshop Cs & Astronomy Tools 1.6.

Cropped to half the size

** Thank you AstroBackyard.com** for all the videos

Orion Nebula with the Running Man nebula just about visible above and slightly left.

Nikon D750

Nikkor 200-500mm at 500mm f5.6

Skywatcher Star Adventurer 2i

Approx 45, 40 Sec images

Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker

Processed in Lightroom and PS

Camera Batteries gave in half way through session so no darks captured.

Another go required at next opportunity

Orion and Running Man nebulas

1344 and 1500 light years respectively from Earth

Orion Complex - Widefield

The Orion Molecular Cloud Complex (or, simply, the Orion Complex) is a large group of bright nebulae, dark clouds, and young stars in the Orion constellation. The cloud is between 1 500 and 1 600 light-years away, and hundreds of light-years across. Several parts of the nebula can be observed through binoculars and small telescopes, and some parts (such as the Orion Nebula) are visible to the naked eye.

In the image is:

1) Witch Head Nebula

2) Orion Nebula

3) Running Man Nebula

4) Branard's Loop

5) Horsehead Nebula

6) Flame Nebula

7) M78

and rest are all annotated

Learning PixInsight for the last few days and i am already addicted, been going over old data (which i thought was not good enough) to see what i can do with it and i am constantly amazed at what PI is doing to it.

This is a stack of 28 + 4 = 32 frames, 28 normal, 4 with CLS Filter on. Odd number of images because few shots were for test and had to throw some away because of tracking errors. Only 4 frames with CLS filter because the clouds rolled in soon.

The data was captured earlier this year (23rd Jan) between 9 to 10 pm from warkweorth satellite station and tracked using vixen polarie. (Thanks Jonathan to use the polarie)

Each:

Normal frame: 28 x 60sec, ISO 1600

CLS Frame: 4 x 120sec, ISO 3200 (Longer exposure and ISO as the filter makes the images darker and captures less light)

Total Exposure Time = 2160 sec = 36 min

Exif: as above, Canon 50mm f1.8 (Nifty Fifty) on Canon 6D

Aligned, Stacked and processed in PixInsight, exported as 16 Bit - tiff to photoshop for final touch.

The Orion Nebula, also known as Messier 42 (M42), is one of the most spectacular and studied objects in the autumn and winter night sky. Located in the Orion constellation, this diffuse nebula can be easily observed with the naked eye, especially under clear, dark skies. M42 is an enormous interstellar cloud composed primarily of hydrogen and helium. This nebula is one of the youngest and most active star-forming regions in our Milky Way, located approximately 1,500 light-years from Earth. Inside the nebula, young stars and planetary systems are currently forming within dense clouds of dust and gas. M42 has a diameter of about 24 light-years, but the mass of the material within it is surprisingly small, only a few thousand solar masses.

When oriented in the direction shown in the image, the nebula resembles, in my opinion, an "angel" holding a huge "heart" in front of itself. The angel's head has its own identifier in the Messier catalog as M43.

Next to the Orion Nebula, on the left edge of the image (northward in the sky), is the NGC 1977, also known as the "Running Man Nebula." With a bit of imagination, one can discern the silhouette of a running man within the reddish area.

ZWO Seestar S50

1636 x 10 sec

This is a collaboration between Robert Fields of Irving Observatory Howell Twp MI and Terry Hancock of Downunder Observatory Fremont, MI.

Terry using Takahashi Epsilon E-180ED / QHY11S Mono CCD

LRGB 97 min bin 1x1

Robert using Takahashi FSQ-106 Refractor / ST11000 Mono CCD

LRGB 170 min bin 1x1

H-alpha 330 min bin 1x1

Total Exposure/Integration time 7 hours

The constellation of Orion is home to many treasures, including the Orion Nebula seen here. A small part of the immense Orion Molecular Cloud, M42 is perhaps the most studied extra-solar object in the sky. Using Robert's 3nm H-Alpha filter we were able to capture and expose it's intricate and picturesque filaments of dust.

Also featured prominently here is NGC 1973/5/7 or otherwise known as the Running Man Nebula and to the lower right of M42 is NGC 1999, a dust filled nebula.

This is a 30-second exposure through my camera (not a telescope) of the Texas night sky, amidst the constellation of Orion. The stuff in the bottom left is part of the Horsehead Nebula and the glorious explosion in the bottom right is part of the Orion Nebula. Immediately to the left of that is the Running Man Nebula. Isn't space cool!? :-D

I took this exposure a few feet away from the AirBnB trailer we were staying at in between the cities of Alpine and Terlingua in western Texas. It was one of the darkest skies I've experienced! I used a iOptron Skytracker Pro equatorial mount to counter earth's rotation and prevent star-trails. I still have so much to learn, but it is a fun journey.

My first M42 of the season! This is the whole of Orion's Sword with the Running Man Nebula at the top and the Orion Nebula in the middle.

Taken from Oxfordshire, UK with a William Optics 70mm refractor and Canon 1100D fitted with a SkyTech light pollution clip filter. The telescope was on an EQ5 Pro mount, tracking but not guided.

Outer region was ISO-1600 for 90 seconds. 30 lights + 26 darks - total exposure time 50 minutes.

Core region was ISO-1600 for 30 seconds, 39 lights and 16 darks, total exposure time 19.5 minutes

The images for the two regions were stacked separately using Deep Sky Stacker. Both were initially processed separately in Photoshop CS2, then blended together using a layer mask. The blended image was then processed further in Photoshop CS2, Lightroom and Fast Stone.

This was a quick process in Photoshop but I'm planning to combine this data with some that I shot last year to see how much more detail I can pull out of it.

A fun experiment with my old Canon 700D which I haven't used for astro for a few years. I enabled LENR and shot under 3 hours of data (82 x 120s + 59 x 10s) but these objects are so bright and fantastic the resulting image is still quite pleasing. I was impressed how effectively LENR blitzed the noise with the camera sensor around 30C. The camera was on a WO Zenithstar 103 scope, no filters were used. Image acquisition was managed via SGP and PHD2, all post-processing was done in PixInsight.

Observed from Prachinburi, Thailand.

This image was originally captured from the garden about two years ago. I thought a revisit was due. I believe the number of light were around 151 (same as last time), however I decided to experiment by adding flats and bias frames. This is something I I've really just started doing so still learning... slowly.

The image depicts Orion Nebula (M42 or Messier 42) and just above the Running Man Nebula (Sh2-279). It is either an editing mistake or the settings on the night were close to being spot on that I may have captured the alpha gases in the area of the nebula.

The Orion Nebula is our closets major star-forming region to Earth estimated at around 1,500 lightyears away and 24 lightyears across.

This image comprises a 6-panel mosaic of the region around Orion’s belt and sword. The image incorporates amongst other things, The Horsehead and The Flame nebulae around the star Alnitak (the first star in Orion’s belt), and The Great Orion Nebula and Running Man Nebula within Orion’s sword.

and M 43 also Running Man Nebula visible on this short 2 minutes exposure taken from Australia " Siding Spring -Observatory . This is test shot and I used T-9 Tele Vue NP 127 mm f/5.6 refracting telescope with FLI 16803M CCD camera. This short exposure image I pushed so much to see maximum details and still not much noise is visible , I love it ! FOV is huge 3 x 3 degrees ;0

Esta región al sur del famoso cinturón, contiene a la gran nebulosa de Orión M42, la nebulosa de De Mairan M43 y Sh2-279 la nebulosa del hombre corriendo, y en la parte interior la estrella ι Orionis (Hatysa).

This region south of the famous belt, contains the great orion nebula (M42), the De Demairan Nebula (M43), and Sh2-279 the running man nebula, bellow M42 we found the star ι Orionis (Hatysa).

The Orion Nebula is another fairly bright target in the night sky. Due to the high dynamic range M42 is usually photographed with a range of exposure times, similar to what one does in landscape photography. The structure to the upper left is M43, the Running Man Nebula. This image consists of a total of 1.8 hours integration time taken with the D800.

M42 Orion Nebula and Running Man Nebula

Vixen Polarie + Standard Tripod

modified Canon 500d

Lights: 35 x 1 minute

Darks: 12 x 1 minute

iso 1600

f/5.6

70-300mm (300mm)

Aligned and stacked in DeepSkyStacker

Processed in Pixinsight and cs5

Location: Vancouver, BC

Temp: 2°C

Final processing of this material

Poncitlan Jalisco, november 2019

14x300s, ISO 800, Canon t3i ir mod and sensor cooling (Dr Chaos) -15 °C

Takahashi epsilon 160 f3.3,

Astromania 60mm f4 + asi034mc + astropi3

Processing in Siril + Darktable

One more stab at the Sword of Orion Region before it sets for the year. This image was made using two sets of data, put together using HDRComposition in PixInsight. Maybe my best yet.

The Sword of Orion region, in the Orion Constellation. This features the amazing Orion Nebula (M42) as well as the smaller and less colorful Running Man Nebula (NGC1977). Hubble has spied new planets being formed around the newer stars in the heart of the Orion Nebula, thus making it a true stellar nursery.

Image Details:

- Imaging Scope: William Optics 61mm Zenithstar II Doublet

- Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI183MC Color with UV/IR Blocking filter

- Guiding Scope: William Optics 66mm Petzval

- Guiding Camera: Orion Starshoot Auto Guider

- Filter: ZWO Duo Band (HA & OIII)

- Acquisition Software: Sharpcap

- Guiding Software: PHD2

- Capture Software: SharpCap Pro (LiveStack mode with dithering)

- Light Frames: 25*3 mins @ 100 Gain, Temp -20C for the broader nebula; 30*30 secs @ 100 GAIN, Temp-20C for the Core

- Dark Frames: 25*3 mins, 30*30 secs

- Stacked in Deep Sky Stacker

- Processed in PixInsight, Adobe Lightroom, Photmatix Pro HDR and Topaz Denoise AI

(source: Wikipedia)

Orion Nebula

(also known as Messier 42, M42, or NGC 1976) is a diffuse nebula situated in the Milky Way, being south of Orion's Belt in the constellation of Orion.[b] It is one of the brightest nebulae and is visible to the naked eye in the night sky with apparent magnitude 4.0. It is 1,344 ± 20 light-years (412.1 ± 6.1 pc) away[3][6] and is the closest region of massive star formation to Earth. The M42 nebula is estimated to be 24 light-years across (so its apparent size from Earth is approximately 1 degree). It has a mass of about 2,000 times that of the Sun.

Running Man Nebula -- is an HII region and bright nebulae that includes a reflection nebula located in the constellation Orion. It is the northernmost part of the asterism known as Orion's Sword, lying 0.6° north of the Orion Nebula. The reflection nebula embedded in Sh2-279 is popularly known as the Running Man Nebula.