A widefield view of Orion's Belt and Sword showing the complex of nebulosity in the area. The three Belt stars are at top (L to R): Alnitak, Alnilam a
A widefield view of Orion's Belt and Sword showing the complex of nebulosity in the area. The three Belt stars are at top (L to R): Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka, with the dark Horsehead Nebula (B33) below Alnitak. Above Alnitak is the pinkish Flame Nebula, NGC 2024. At bottom are Messiers 42 and 43, making up the Orion Nebula, with the bluish Running Man Nebula above it, aka NGC 1973-5-7. Above it is the star cluster NGC 1981. Messier 78 is just on frame at upper left. Numerous other bits of emission and reflection nebulas populate the field amid a backdrop of faint emission nebulosity. The stars around the Belt belong to the large star cluster Collinder 70. This is a blend of two stacks of images: 15 x 8 minutes through an IDAS NBX dual narrowband filter to bring out the faint nebulosity, and 15 x 4-minutes with no filter for the more natural star colours and colours of the Orion, Flame and Horsehead (IC 434) Nebulas. So a total of 3 hours of exposure time. I did not take shorter exposures for the Orion Nebula core. All were with the William Optics RedCat 51mm astrograph at and filter-modified (by AstroGear) Canon EOS R at ISO 3200 for the filtered shots and ISO 800 for the unfiltered shots. Taken from home January 22, 2023 on a rare clear winter night. Autoguided and dithered with the Lacerta MGEN3 autoguider. No darks or LENR employed. All stacking, alignment and masking in Photoshop. Luminosity masks with Lumenzia helped bring out the nebulosity, as did a mild application of the Nebula FIlter action in the PhotoKemi StarTools Actions set. Noise reduction with RC-Astro Noise XTerminator. The filtered set has had all the stars removed using RC-Astro Star XTerminator, so it contributed just the nebulosity, Stars come from the unfiltered set for tighter stars with more natural colours.
Size: 4480px × 6720px
Photo credit: © Alan Dyer / VWPics / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: 1973-5-7, 434, 1981, 2023, 2024, alnilam, alnitak, amazing, astro, astrogear, astronomical, astronomy, astrophotography, b33, belt, blend, canon, cluster, collinder, cosmos, cr70, dual, emission, filter, flame, formation, great, horsehead, ic, idas, lumenzia, m42, m43, m78, man, messier, mgen3, mintaka, modified, narrowband, nbx, nebula, nebulosity, ngc, noise, optics, orion, orionis, photokemi, rc-astro, redcat, reflection, running, science, sigma, skies, sky, star, sword, unique, william, xterminator
