View allAll Photos Tagged runningmannebula
Running man and (if you look closesely) the HorseHead Nebula !!
55*25s (+ dof) at 218mm F5.6 and 1600ISO on motorised EQ2
I should train a little more with the post processing
My Facebook Page : www.facebook.com/AlexandreDPhotographies
One of the most familiar constellations in the sky, at least some portion of Orion is visible from everywhere on Earth. The familiar shape of Orion the hunter is shown in this wide field image. Betelgeuse glows orange in the upper left and is a supergiant star with a radius nearly 700 times that of our sun. Rigel sits on the lower right while the belt of Orion is marked by the three bright central stars falling in a line. To the left of the belt is the famous Horsehead and Flame Nebulae. Below the belt extends the sword of Orion which contains the famous great Orion nebula complex (M43/M42) as well as the running-man nebula. Finally, the long arch to the left is Barnard's loop, a faint nebula that's the remnant of a 2 million year old supernova. The loop is about 300 light years in diameter.
Technical details:
This is the first wide field attempt with the Nikon lens adapter for my SBIG camera. It works quite well, but this lens works best a few f/stops from wide open. Taken under a nearly full moon. Total exposure time 1.25hrs. Would like to go deeper with more exposure time.
Imaging scope: Nikon 55mm f/1.8 Lens set to f/4
Imaging Camera: ST8300M (capture with Equinox Image)
Filters: Baader filters in FW5-8300 filter wheel
Guide scope: Astro-Tech 106mm Triplet
Guide camera: Starfish Fishcamp (guided with PHD)
Mount: Atlas EQ-GCalibration and processing in PixInsight.
Synthetic luminance from all frames
L(HaR)GB:
Ha: 12x5min (1x1)
R: 5x1min (1x1)
G: 5x1min (1x1)
B: 5x1min (1x1)
NGC-1973, NGC-1975, NGC-1977 0n 10-26-2014.Canon 6D DSLR & 16inch Scope, ISO 3200, .32 minute exposure
Orion is now appearing in the early morning sky and I can remember that just a few weeks ago it was too low in the sky to be photographed (was actually blocked from view by a bush on my eastern horizon).
Photographed on the morning of August 20, 2012 from a moderately dark-sky location using a 5 inch aperture, f/4.2 telescope and a Sony NEX-5N digital camera (ISO800, a stack of eighty-eight images each exposed for 30 seconds, producing a total exposure integration time of 44 minutes). Tracking for each of the 30 second exposures was performed by a Celestron CGEM mount (no manual or auto guiding, standard sidereal rate after one star polar align).
Image registration, integration, and adjustments done with PixInsight v01.07.06.0793 with final tweaks in Photoshop CS5.
This photo is best viewed against a dark background (press the "L" key to enter the Flickr light box).
All rights reserved.
Subject: M42, M43, NGC1977 -- Orion Nebula and Running Man Nebula
Image FOV: 2 Degrees square (120 arc-minutes square)
Scale: 9 arc-seconds per pixel
Date: 2005/09/30 - 2005/12/04
Exposure: 212 x 2min at ISO 400 f/2.8 (300mm) + 45 x 15sec f/5.6 (800mm) f/5.6 Total exposure = 7h15m15s, ISO 400
Filter: IDAS LPS
Lens: Nikon 300mm f/2.8 AIS lens and Nikon 800mm f/5.6 AIS
Camera: Canon 20D (unmodified)
Mount: Single-arm motorized barndoor tracker, unguided
Processing: Subexposures were registered and combined using Registar. Dark frames were used for each night, but no flat frames or bias frames were taken.
Remarks: Subexposures were taken on 8 different nights between 2005/09/30 and 2005/12/04 under various sky conditions. The short 800mm shots were taken with a bright moon out. The main post-processing involved combining the 800mm image of the bright center and the 300mm image of the rest. The 800mm image was aligned (and reduced) to match the 300mm image, and then the two were combined using layers and masks in Photoshop. Photoshop curves/levels adjustment was done, along with cropping, resizing, and JPEG conversion.
Canon 60D unmodded
Canon 400mm f5.6L
Astrotrac
ISO 3200-4000
@ f 5.6 36 x 150 seconds, 35 x 120 seconds
12/19/2012
The Orion Nebula, M42 and M43, with surrounding associated nebula and star clusters, such as the Running Man Nebula above (NGC 1975) and blue star cluster above it, NGC 1981.
This is one of the most often photographed but most challenging dee-sky objects to shoot, because of its huge range in brightess from the bright core to the outlying wisps of dim red nebulosity. Capturing it all in one frame requires a form of âhigh-dynamic-rangeâ techniques: shooting several different exposures and manually stacking and masking them in Photoshop.
I shot and processed this image for use as a demonstration and tutorial image for my Photoshop for Astronomy Workshops. This demonstrates the methods and result of masking several different exposures to retain details in the bright core while also bringing out the faintest outlying bits of nebulosity, compressing the dynamic range tremendously.
All processing was done with Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop CC 2014. Total processing time from Raw to final was about 3 hours.
The image is made of:
- 10 x 6 minute exposures, Median combined in a registered stack, at ISO 1250. The median stacking reduced, but did not completely eliminate, the satellite trails from geosatatonary satellites that were in almost every frame.
- 5 x 1.5 minute exposures at ISO 1250 for the mid-level brightness areas, blended using Darken mode
- 5 x 30 second exposures at ISO 800 for the bright core, blended using Darken mode
- 5 x 30 second exposures at ISO 400 for the brightest part of the central core around the Trapezium stars, blended using Darken mode
Shorter exposure layers were stacked and masked using a luminance mask: created by Command Clicking on the RGB Channel to select just the highlights of that exposure then using that selection to create a mask to reveal the core area and hide the rest.
Additional top-level layers were added for enhancing detail overall:
- Luminosity layer created from the Red channel, and blended using Luninosity blend mode
- Sharpening layer created from a âstampedâ merge of all layers and with a High Pass filter applied, and blended using Overlay blend mode.
All adjustments and filters were applied through adjustment latyers and smart filters so every aspect of the image could be re-tweaked at will later. Masks were blurred using Feathering in the Mask Properties panel. No destructive filtering to images or masks was employed.
As a final step, some residual vertical banding and noise was smoothed out with an application of Nik Collection DFine noise reduction.
Diffraction spikes added to stars using Noel Carboniâs Astronomy Tools actions.
All frames were taken with a filter-modified Canon 5D MkII and through a TMB 92mm apo refractor at f/5.5 with a Hotech field flattener.
Taken from Silver City, New Mexico, January 22, 2015.
Canon 6D
Canon 300mm f/4.0 + Canon 1.4 Teleconverter @ f/5.6
Vixen Polarie tracking head
51 x 30sec @ISO3200
22 x 30sec @ISO12800
Stacked in DeepSkyStacker
Processed in Lightroom
My first attempt to capture Horse Head nebula.
Too much light pollution to capture as expected.
Canon 500D
Sigma 120-400 @120mm
f 6.3
ISO 800
35 frames x 120 seconds
58 frames x 60 seconds
total exposure about 128 minutes
60 darks
61 bias
45 flats
First real try at Orion Nebula with tracking mount. About 2.5 hours of integration.
Nikon D5300 (unmodded)
SW HEQ5-Pro (unguided)
WO GT81
60s x 117 lights
30s x 60 lights
30 Dark frames
This would be a rather ordinary photo of Orion's belt except for the unidentified object that appears in the left-center quarter of the frame (near to the Flame Nebula and Zeta Orionis/Alnitak). That green streak isn't an airplane and I'm pretty certain that it isn't a simple digital artifact (cosmic ray striking the camera sensor?). The only other possibilities I can think of are either a meteor or a flare from an earth orbiting satellite. My guess would be that it is a meteor with the green color being caused by the nickel-metal content in the meteor itself (apparently that is the color you get with meteors that have a high nickel content).
[UPDATE] Yes, this is a meteor. In fact, it is a member of the Orionid Meteor Shower that peaked on Oct 21/22 of this year. If you trace the path back up toward the top of the frame then you will eventually arrive at the so-called radiant point of the Orionids. Also, the Orionid meteors are known for their green color. The Orionids are associated with Halley's Comet, so you're seeing a piece of this famous comet being vaporized in our atmosphere. [/UPDATE]
The green tint of this object was vividly apparent in the raw, unprocessed image, but I have no way of knowing whether the color was completely natural or whether it was caused by the capture technique or some other unknown factor.
The meteor is best seen in the Flickr light box (press the "L" key to toggle the light box, or better yet click on the "View all sizes" menu item to see the image at its largest size).
This two-minute-long, single-frame exposure also recorded the Flame Nebula, a faint outline of the Horsehead Nebula, the reflection nebula M78, and the Running Man Nebula (bottom edge center).
Captured on October 22, 2011 at 2:01AM PDT from a moderately dark-sky location using a Nikon D5100 DSLR (ISO 3200, 2 minute exposure) and an AF Nikkor 50mm 1:1.8D lens set to aperture f/2.8. Tracking provided by a hand-driven, barn-door type mount (two boards, a hinge, and a screw you turn by hand).
All rights reserved.
The full frame picture, a HDR capture by Rob Johnson
This photo was the winner for Deep Sky Imaging in a contest at the annual RTMC Astronomy Expo, 2007.
NGC 1977 "Running Man Nebula" is on the left.
Close up crop is at flickr.com/photos/edhiker/305082569/in/photostream/
Robs_New_m42hdr20061119_SG_full
This was taken on 16/01/2012 in East Cowes, Isle of Wight by me! Steve Dean at about 2200 with an 80 mm refractor and Canon DSLR. It is composed of 3 5 minute exposures.
Subject: M42, M43, NGC1973, NGC1975, NGC1977, NGC1980, NGC1981
Image FOV = 3 by 2.5 degrees
Image Scale = 8 arc-second/pixel
Date: 2006/12/15, 2006/12/19, 2006/12/28, 2006/12/30, 2007/01/10
Exposure (H-alpha): 39x600s + 25x60s + 15x20s = 7h, ISO 800, Baader 7nm H-alpha filter
Exposure (RGB): 51x240s + 18x10s = 3h27m, ISO800, Astronomik UHC filter
Camera: Hutech-modified Canon 30D
Telescope: SV80S 80mm f/6 + TV TRF-2008 0.8X reducer/flattener = 384mm FL, f/4.8
Mount: Losmandy G-11
Guiding: ST-402 autoguider and SV66 guidescope. MaximDL autoguiding software using 1-second guide exposures
Processing: Raw conversion and calibration with ImagesPlus (dark and bias frames only, no flat frames); Aligning and combining with Registar; Layering, levels, curves, color balancing, blur, crop/resize, JPEG conversion with Photoshop CS. UHC red channel was replaced by the H-alpha red channel in Photoshop. This, plus the use of the UHC filter for RGB data, seems to cause color balance problems.
During this lockdown, there have been a fair few clear nights though not all moonless. We did have however have some around the February New moon. I took advantage of this and thought I would revisit shooting Orion from the garden.
No tracker, just a standard DSLR and tripod. 200mm lens at F2.8 and intervalometer.
200 light frames, 20 darks and 20 bias.
Here you can see the Orian Nebula (bottom), Running man nebula (just above). Near the top left is the Horse head nebula (quite faint) and just above that the flame nebula.
All of this is around 1350 light years from Earth.
I'm under no illusions that this is a terribly uninteresting image to most people.
However, I was completely blown away to see the horsehead nebula sitting at the bottom of the frame (the fainter of the two).
This is about 10 minutes worth of exposure taken from the backyard. Each photo was a 5 second image, which is not ideal, but it is what was needed to capture the fainter objects.
The Orion Nebula is one of the largest and brightest deep-sky objects that exists in our quadrant of the Milky Way galaxy. It is a star forming region that consists of gas and dust that is being excited and illuminated by hot, young stars near to the center of the nebula. Given any clear and relatively dark night during the winter (in the northern hemisphere) it can been seen with the naked eye as a fuzzy "star" in the constellation Orion (look for it as the middle "star" in the sword that hangs below the belt of Orion the Hunter).
Photographed from my light-polluted front driveway using a two-inch aperture "guide" scope (Stellarvue SV50ED) and a Sony NEX-5N digital camera (ISO 800, 60 seconds x 83, prime focus with AT2FF field flattener, 330mm focal length, f/6.6).
An interesting note, on the far right side of this photo astrometry.net has identified the very small reflection nebula NGC 1999 that is noted for containing a region of completely empty space that forms a visual hole just slightly offset from the center of the nebula. Surprisingly, that feature (the hole) seems to be visible in this photo.
This image is best viewed at full size and/or against a dark background (press the "L" key to enter the Flickr light box).
The setup for this picture included the use of a light-pollution filter and it thus proved somewhat difficult to process given the filter's colorcast and the rather significant light pollution that I have in my home town. To see what can be done in much less time from a relatively dark location using a larger and "better" telescope (5 inch aperture, f/4.2) you should view my previous image entitled "The Great Orion Nebula (M42/M43) and the Running Man Nebula (NGC 1973/5/7)" (LINK).
To see a closeup of the central core of the nebula and the famous Trapezium star cluster you can view my post entitled "The Trapezium and the Core of the Great Orion Nebula (M42)" (LINK).
All rights reserved.
After seeing these excellent photos right next to each other in my contact photo list, and seeing a clear night sky for the first time in 2008, I thought I'd snag an Orion Nebula shot of my own. That's the Running Man nebula near the top.
Canon XTi at prime focus of Orion SVP 80ED. Stack of 33 photos @ 30 seconds each, stacked in DeepSkyStacker.
It's an unremarkable photo as M42 shots go, but definitely one of my best.
Version C - Same stack as version A, but stretched to show all the faint hidden detail captured in the outer parts of the nebula with no regard for the brightness of the background sky or for overexposing the core of the nebula. The full shape of the Running Man Nebula is visible in the top left. I didn't make any effort to balance the colours in this one.
50x 30 second exposures were stacked and stretched with PixInsight 1.6, using a Skywatcher 190mm Maksutov Newtonian on an LXD75 mount. Shot with a Canon T1i at prime focus at ISO800.
I used no calibration frames (darks or flats), instead let PI's hot pixel remover work during stacking and reduced the sky glow and vignetting using the Dynamic Background Extractor tool in PI.
Image was sharpened mildly and rescaled to 90% to reduce the file size, and saved to PNG format using The Gimp.
I shot 80x 30 second exposures, dropped the exposures where the stars were not quite round.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
20150325 - An artist at Deviantart used this image in this cool space composition:
M42 es una de las nebulosas más brillantes en el cielo, visible a simple vista como una mancha borrosa que rodea Theta Orionis, la estrella media en la Espada de Orion, justo al sur del Cinturón de Orion, a una distancia de 1350 años luz de la Tierra
Anteriormente ya habÃa captado está impresionante Nebulosa, tan especial para mà al ser la primera que logré fotografiar, por lo que, ya contando con un poco más de conocimiento y experiencia decidà volver a visitarla y ver si conseguÃa mayor detalle.
Han sido largas noches para obtener este tipo de imágenes, dependiendo totalmente de las condiciones climáticas, esperando que sean noches despejadas, sin viento, sin humedad, sin Luna, condiciones muy difÃciles a veces de conseguir, pero a pesar de eso he aprendido bastante los últimos meses, desde una mejor forma de ubicar estos objetos hasta mejorar el proceso de captura y el proceso de edición, y al final el resultado de esta segunda visita a está majestuosa nebulosa es impresionante, realmente todo ese tiempo invertido ha valido la pena, pronto volveré una tercera vez y veremos qué podré conseguir en esa ocasión
Two Bright Nebulae in the Orion Constellation
==========================
Image exposure: 60 minutes
Image Size: 86.5 x 57.7 arcmin
Image date: 2025-02-04
==========================
==========================
Canon 60D unmodded @ 280mm
70-200mm +TC 1.6
Astrotrac
ISO 800-1600
18 exposures @ f 5.6-f 13 120-200seconds
2/26/2012 Northern New Jersey
Little bit of light pollution from the moon, but otherwise, perfect night for shooting.
Canon 60D unmodded
Canon 400mm f5.6L
Astrotrac
ISO 3200-4000
@ f 5.6 36 x 150 seconds, 35 x 120 seconds
12/19/2012
I tried pulling some more of the sky glow out and went a little less aggressive with the curves. It might've lost me some detail, but results in a more pleasant image I think. Not much different though at a glance.
Messier 42 The Great Nebula in Orion.
Third try at this DSO in the middle of light-polluted Singapore. Clear weather. No lens fogging problems unlike the first two attempts. Only problem was satellite signals keep disconnecting at this location. Only few subs were collected as a result. Despite so, the resultant stacked photo definitely looks better than previous tries. Running Man Nebula is vaguely visible on the right.
Details:
Pentax K-30 with DAL55-300mm lens
Pentax O-GPS1 Astrotracer
shot at 300mm, cropped
10x20s, iso1600
8x10s, iso3200
10 dark frames
Stacked using DSS
A very rough first pass. I just installed Siril, and I'm just learning Photoshop. I also learned the importance of a dew heater. Only a few of the 560 images were usable. I now have a dew heater. I'm just waiting for clear skies.
equipment: Leica Apo-Elmarit-R 180mmF2.8 at F4 and Canon EOS 5Dmk2-sp2 by Seo san at iso 1,600 on Takahashi EM-200 temma 2Jr, autoguided with hiro-design off-axis guider, StarlightXpress Lodestar autoguider, and PHD Guiding
exposure: 2 times x 30 minutes, 6 x 8 min, 11 x 4 min, 11 x 1 minute, 10 x 15 seconds, 10 x 4 sec, and 10 x 1 second
Location: 11,000 feet above sea level near MLO, Mauna Loa Observatory on the shoulder of Mauna Loa in the Big Island, Hawaii
William Optics Zenithstar 73
ZwoASI2600MC Pro
Optolong L-Pro broadband filter
PHD2 guided
SharpCap
DeepSkyStacker
Adobe Photoshop CC 2021
29-150 second subs
Orion Nebula (M42) is and active star forming region in our galaxy and is also one of the most imaged nebulas. The Running Man (NGC 1977) is a reflection nebula just ½ of a degree from the Orion Nebula. Image taken with a Canon 60Da Camera, ES127mm refractor, and Celestron CGEM Mount.
A section of the southern half of the constellation Orion showing the stars Rigel, Alnitak, and Alnilam with the nebulas M42 (Great Orion Nebula), M43, NGC 1973/5/7 (Running Man Nebula), NGC 2023, and NGC 2024 (Flame Nebula). The Flame Nebula appears to the left of the star Alnitak which is the easternmost of the three belt stars in Orion while the star Alnilam marks the center of the belt. The Horsehead Nebula is also very faintly visible just below the star Alnitak.
Along the right edge of the picture are inserts showing closer views of the Flame Nebula and the Great Orion Nebula (these are enlarged clips from the wide-field image that forms the larger background to this photo composition).
This image is best viewed in the Flickr light box or at full size (press the "L" key to toggle the light box or click one of the following links):
Rigel to Alnitak, View On Black
Rigel to Alnitak, View At Full Size
Photographed on February 9, 2012 between the hours 7:44PM and 8:10PM PST using a Nikon D5100 DSLR (ISO 400, 90 seconds exposure x 14, 105mm 1:2.5 Nikon Ai lens at f/4). Image registration, integration, and adjustments done with PixInsight v01.07.04.0759 (trial) with final composition done in Photoshop CS5.
Camera tracking/guiding was done entirely by using a hand-driven, barn-door type mount (two boards, a hinge, and a screw you turn by hand).
All rights reserved.
There are four nebulas in this image starting with the Flame Nebula at the top, then the Horsehead Nebula, so called because there is a silhouette of a so called horse's head, then the Running Man Nebula and finally the Orion Nebula. These heavenly bodies are found in Orion's Belt. There is also a lot of intersteller dust that surrounds the nebulae and stars as well. Image taken during the early morning hours of December 28, 2013 from Eastern Colorado. This picture is 82 frames stacked with the ISO set at 1600 and exposure times varied from 5 seconds to 90 seconds. The short exposure time was to try to not over-expose the core of Orion's Nebula.
The Orion Nebula, also known as Messier 42 and NGC 1976. One of my all-time favourite celestial objects and something I look forward to imaging every winter. Each attempt brings out more detail and this image shows some of the fainter gas and dust in the vicinity. At the top of the image is the Running Man Nebula (Sh2-279), a reflection nebula north of M42 and an object that in previous attempts I've struggled to resolve. Both objects are part of the asterism known as Orion's Sword which on a clear night can be seen with the naked eye just below the three stars which make up Orion's Belt. M42 is one of the brightest nebulae and is located at a distance of 1,344 ± 20 light-years. It is the closest region of massive star formation to Earth. The M42 nebula is estimated to be 24 light-years across.
For this image, a total of 78 shots were taken at three different exposure times. The three stacked exposures were then blended together in Photoshop to see the fainter details without the very bright heart of the nebula (a very young open cluster known as the Trapezium containing at least four energetic young stars) being massively overexposed. Conditions were surprisingly good for a change with clear sky and no Moon. This image is also my first attempt at processing on a Mac machine with a large monitor instead of struggling to see things properly on my PC laptop. I think it made a difference.
More information here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_Nebula
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion%27s_Sword
020 x 300 second exposures at Unity Gain (139) cooled to -20°C
022 x 090 second exposures at Unity Gain (139) cooled to -20°C
036 x 030 second exposures at Unity Gain (139) cooled to -20°C
200 x dark frames
060 x flat frames
100 x bias frames (subtracted from flat frames)
Binning 1x1
Total integration time = 2 hours and 31 minutes
Captured with APT
Guided with PHD2
Processed in Nebulosity and Photoshop
Equipment:
Telescope: Sky-Watcher Explorer-150PDS
Mount: Skywatcher EQ5
Guide Scope: Orion 50mm Mini
Guiding Camera: ZWO ASI120MC
Imaging Camera: ZWO ASI1600MC Pro
Baader Mark-III MPCC Coma Corrector
Light pollution filter
I don't get a chance to do this very often so this is about my 3rd effort at the Orion nebula. Really wanted to see how my Irix 150 Dragonfly lens would do on the comet but since it was a warm-ish, clear night I had to take a few shots of Orion too.
Just 12 light frames. Made a mistake and left "autorotate" turned on in my camera while taking dark frames and Deep Sky Stacker does not like it when shots are not all oriented the same. Learned something new anyway.
Orion Region
Canon 80D
Irix 150mm f2.8 macro (Dragonfly)
Star Watcher Sky Adventurer
12 x 15 sec f3.5 ISO 6400
Nikon FM2N
Fujichrome Sensia 400
Stack of three exposures (6 min, 3 min, 1.5 min) prime focus shot through Paul Klauniger's telescope.
From top to bottom: Open cluster NGC 1981, Running Man reflection nebula NGC 1977, Great Orion Nebula M42 and De Mairan's nebula M43.
I thought my polar alignment was a bit dodgy so thought that 2 minute exposures wouldnt blow out the nebula too much and wouldnt strain my polar alignment.
480/80mm refractor with Canon 60Da at ISO800. Astro-Hutech LPS filter. 14 x 2 min exposures. Guided and dithered with SSAG/PHD. Ioptron ZEQ25GT equatorial mount. 30 darks and 25 flats (white LED panel).
Processed in PixInsight and Photoshop CC
105mm telescope and Canon 20Da camera. High Dynamic Range from 2x5 images at ISO 1600 (f/7)
Two trails can be seen on the large size, one for sure a Geosynchronous satellite, the other, not sure.
NGC 1977 "Running Man Nebula" is on the left, use full size.
Robs_m42hdr20061119_filteredCrSG
The central area of the constellation Orion as photographed with a 50mm Nikkor AF-D lens and a Nikon D5100 DSLR. This image is best viewed in the Flickr light box (press the "L" key to toggle the light box and optionally click on the "View all sizes" menu item to see the image at its largest size).
This is a stack of two images that were exposed for approximately 4 minutes each using a hand-driven, barn-door type tracking mount (two boards, a hinge, and a screw you turn by hand).
Please refer to the image notes for the locations of the Great Orion Nebula (M42/M43), the Running Man Nebula (NGC 1973/5/7), the Horsehead Nebula, the Flame Nebula (NGC 2024), the reflection nebula M78, and a small part of Barnard's Loop.
Captured on September 29, 2011 at 3:10AM PDT from a moderately dark-sky location with a Nikon D5100 DSLR (ISO 800, 240 second exposure x 2) and a 50mm AF-D Nikkor lens set to aperture f/2.8. Image stack created with Photoshop CS3 using two image frames combined with two dark frames (no flats or bias).
All rights reserved.
The brighter of the two nebulae in this image is the Orion Nebula (Messier 42 & 43), perhaps one of the most photographed and studied deep sky objects. Is is visible to the naked eye and is spectacular in a mid-size scope. The nebula above it is called the Running Man Nebula (NGC 1975) because the dark area inside it looks like a little cartoon man running with his arms outstretched. Above the Running Man is the open cluster NGC 1981, and the two stars just to the south of the Orion Nebula are sitting in the open cluster NGC 1980.
I really, really, wanted to image this area with my refractor before Orion dropped below the evening horizon until next winter, and thankfully I made it. There was a waxing crescent Moon, but M42 is so bright the image turned out anyway. This imaging session was rather civilized - while the telescope was doing its thing in my friends' driveway we sat inside and sipped cognac and solved the problems of the world... imaging at its best.
An unguided/untracked, short-exposure view of the Great Orion Nebula captured with a series of 1.3 second long exposures using a Nikon D5100 DSLR and a Nikkor 105mm AI-S telephoto lens.
This picture also recorded a series of tracks that may be from two geostationary satellites (these appear as blue, dotted lines to the left of the Orion Nebula, see the image notes for the precise location). The satellites appear as dotted lines because each one of the 33 images used to create this final stack of pictures was offset from one another to remove any movement in the stars caused by the earth's rotation. Thus, given this shift to align the star images any earth-stationary object will appear to move in steps between each exposure (thus the satellite images appear as dotted lines - one dot for each exposure).
This image is best viewed in the Flickr light box (press the "L" key to toggle the light box and optionally click on the "View all sizes" menu item to see the image at its largest size).
Captured on November 28, 2011 between the hours of 1:26AM and 1:28AM PST from a significantly light-polluted, near-center-city location using a Nikon D5100 DSLR (ISO 800, 1.3 seconds x 33 or 42.9 seconds total exposure integration time) and a Nikkor 105mm AI-S 1:2.5 lens set to aperture f/2.5 (wide open). Image stack created with DeepSkyStacker (33 "light" frames and 8 "dark" frames) with final adjustments done in Photoshop CS3.
All rights reserved.
This is, again, the Sword of Orion region in the Orion Constellation. It contains the Running Man Nebula to the left and the Great Orion Nebula to the right, both being massive star forming regions. Without a doubt, one of the most amazing visual and photographic night sky objects.
This is a combination of data taken several days ago, processed with data taken last year. I decided to leave this in black and white as it tends to illustrate the detail in the nebulosity much better than color.
About 75 minutes (7, 4 and 1 minute frames)
- 5 * 3 minute dark frames
- 10 bias frames
- ISO 800
- Imaged with a Nikon D7000 and Astrotelescopes 80mm ED Refractor
- Guided with a Meade DSI and Orion SSAG through a William Optics 66mm Refractor
- Mounted on a Celestron CGEM
- Stacked in DSS
- Post processing in GIMP
- Mild tonemapping in Photomatix Pro
- Noise reduction in NeatImage
Telescope: Stellarvue 70mm ED
Camera: Hutech modified Canon XT
Location: Locust Valley, NY
ISO: 400
Exposure: 10x180 seconds with dark frames subtracted.
Guiding: Shoestring adapter, PHD, and DSI Pro through a C8.
Processed with MaxDSLR and Photoshop
Starting at the top of the image:
NGC 1981 (Open Cluster)
NGC 1977 (Running Man Nebula)
M43 (nebula)
M42 (Orion Nebula)
NGC 1980 (Open Cluster with nebula)
100 x 8-s exposures, ISO 2000, f/7.1, 250 mm, combined in DeepSkyStacker. Nikon D800 mounted on a Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer.
All the planets of the solar system along with galaxies, light and dark nebulae, open and globular clusters, a planetary nebula, and a comet. The galaxies are imaged with just my Sony NEX-5N. Everything else was done with an unguided Questar 3.5". This started out as a web header, but that ended up very linear and stiff. I've done more than a bit of violence to the order of the universe here and my sense of composition is a bit overwhelmed by the number of choices - I'd appreciate comments on how to improve this kind of composition.
Canon 6D
Canon 300mm f/4.0 + Canon 1.4 Teleconverter @ f/5.6
Vixen Polarie tracking head
51 x 30sec @ISO3200
22 x 30sec @ISO12800
Stacked in DeepSkyStacker
Processed in Lightroom