Tag Archives: Great Orion Nebula

M42

The Orion Nebula (also known as Messier 42, M42, or NGC 1976) is a diffuse nebula situated south of Orion’s Belt in theconstellation of Orion. It is one of the brightest nebulae, and is visible to the naked eye in the night sky. M42 is located at a distance of 1,344 ± 20 light years and is the closest region of massive star formation to Earth. The M42 nebula is estimated to be 24 light years across. It has a mass of about 2000 times the mass of the Sun. Older texts frequently refer to the Orion Nebula as the Great Nebula in Orion or the Great Orion Nebula.
The Orion Nebula is one of the most scrutinized and photographed objects in the night sky, and is among the most intensely studied celestial features.The nebula has revealed much about the process of how stars and planetary systems are formed from collapsing clouds of gas and dust. Astronomers have directly observed protoplanetary disks, brown dwarfs, intense and turbulent motions of the gas, and the photo-ionizing effects of massive nearby stars in the nebula.

Imaging telescopes or lenses: Borg 71FL
Imaging cameras: Canon / CentralDS EOS 60D
Mounts: Sky-Watcher EQ-6 Skyscan
Guiding telescopes or lenses: Borg 50 Achromat 50/250
Focal reducers: Borg Super reducer
Software: PixInsight, BinaryRivers BackyardEOS
Dates: March 9, 2013
Frames: 25×360″ ISO1600 -20C
Integration: 2.5 hours

Author: Emanuele Todini
AstroPhotography of the day by SPONLI 21 Sep 2014

Orion Nebula

Imaging telescopes or lenses: Takahashi TSA 102 f/8
Imaging cameras: Canon EOS 1000D / Rebel XS
Mounts: Takahashi EM-400 Temma2
Guiding telescopes or lenses: Lunatico EZG60
Guiding cameras: QHYCCD QHY5
Software: PHD guiding, PixInsight, Bahtinov Grabber
Filters: Astronomik CLS CCD clip in
Dates: Dec. 26, 2011, Dec. 27, 2011
Frames:
Astronomik CLS CCD clip in: 18×180″ ISO400
Astronomik CLS CCD clip in: 15×30″ ISO400
Astronomik CLS CCD clip in: 18×60″ ISO400
Astronomik CLS CCD clip in: 10×600″ ISO400
Astronomik CLS CCD clip in: 14×900″ ISO800
Integration: 6.5 hours
Darks: ~20
Flats: ~20
Bias: ~20

Author: Alberto Pisabarro
AstroPhotography of the day by SPONLI 19 Aug 2014

Orion widefield

Orion’s seven brightest stars form a distinctive hourglass-shaped asterism, or pattern, in the night sky. Four stars—Rigel, Betelgeuse, Bellatrix and Saiph—form a large roughly rectangular shape, in the centre of which lie the three stars of Orion’s Belt (centre of the image) — Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka. Descending from the ‘belt’ is a smaller line of three stars (the middle of which is in fact not a star but the Orion Nebula), known as the hunter’s ‘sword’.

Hanging from Orion’s belt is his sword, consisting of the multiple stars θ1 and θ2 Orionis, called the Trapezium and the Orion Nebula (M42). Besides these nebulae, surveying Orion with a small telescope will reveal a wealth of interesting deep-sky objects, including M43, M78, as well as multiple stars including Iota Orionis and Sigma Orionis. A larger telescope may reveal objects such as Barnard’s Loop and theFlame Nebula (NGC 2024), as well as fainter and tighter multiple stars and nebulae. All of these nebulae are part of the larger Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, which is located approximately 1,500 light-years away and is hundreds of light-years across. It is one of the most intense regions of stellar formation visible in our galaxy.

Imaging telescopes or lenses: Canon 50mm f/1,4 Lense
Imaging cameras: Canon EOS 550D / Rebel T2i
Mounts: Skywatcher Neq6 pro synscan
Guiding cameras: QHY5
Software: DeepSkyStacker, PHD guiding, photoshop
Dates: Oct. 5, 2013
Frames: 15×420″
Integration: 1.8 hours

Author: Ivan Jevremovic
AstroPhotography of the day by SPONLI 11 July 2014

Orion’s Belt and nebulae

Orion’s Belt or the Belt of Orion is an asterism in the constellation Orion. It consists of the three bright stars Alnitak, Alnilam and Mintaka.

Looking for Orion’s Belt in the night sky is the easiest way to locate the constellation Orion in the sky. The stars are more or less evenly spaced in a straight line, and so can be visualized as the belt of the hunter’s clothing. In the Northern hemisphere, they are best visible in the early night sky during the winter, in particular the month of January at around 9.00 pm

Imaging telescopes or lenses: Canon EF 100-300mm f/5.6 L, Intes Micro mn 55
Imaging cameras: Canon EOS 550D / Rebel T2i
Mounts: Sky-Watcher HEQ5
Guiding cameras: QHY5
Software: PHD guiding, Stark Labs Nebulosity 3.1.0, photoshop, Russell Croman gradient xterminator
Filters: Baader 2′ H-Alpha Filter 7nm
Dates: Jan. 8, 2013
Frames: 15×360″
Integration: 1.5 hours

Author: Ivan Jevremovic
AstroPhotography of the day by SPONLI 10 July 2014

Orion Nebula

The entirety of the Orion Nebula extends across a 1° region of the sky, and includes neutral clouds of gas and dust, associations of stars,ionized volumes of gas, and reflection nebulae.

The Nebula is part of a much larger nebula that is known as the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex. The Orion Molecular Cloud Complex extends throughout the constellation of Orion and includes Barnard’s Loop, the Horsehead Nebula, M43, M78, and the Flame Nebula. Stars are forming throughout the Orion Nebula, and due to this heat-intensive process the region is particularly prominent in the infrared.

The nebula forms a roughly spherical cloud that peaks in density near the core. The cloud has a temperature ranging up to 10,000 K, but this temperature falls dramatically near the edge of the nebula.Unlike the density distribution, the cloud displays a range of velocities and turbulence, particularly around the core region. Relative movements are up to 10 km/s (22,000 mi/h), with local variations of up to 50 km/s and possibly more.

The current astronomical model for the nebula consists of an ionized region roughly centered on Theta Orionis C, the star responsible for most of the ultraviolet ionizing radiation. (It emits 3-4 times as much photoionizing light as the next brightest star, Theta² Orionis A.) This is surrounded by an irregular, concave bay of more neutral, high-density cloud, with clumps of neutral gas lying outside the bay area. This in turn lies on the perimeter of the Orion Molecular Cloud.
Observers have given names to various features in the Orion Nebula. The dark lane that extends from the north toward the bright region is called the “Fish’s Mouth”. The illuminated regions to both sides are called the “Wings”. Other features include “The Sword”, “The Thrust”, and “The Sail”.

Imaging telescopes or lenses: Meade Starfinder 10″
Imaging cameras: QSI 683wsg-8
Mounts: Losmandy G11
Guiding cameras: The Imaging Source DMK41AF02.AS
Software: Main Sequence Software Sequence Generator Pro, PHD guiding, PixInsight, photoshop
Filters: B, R, L, Astronomik Green, Astronomik 12nm SII Filter S2 12nm, astronomik 12nm H-Alpha
Dates: Dec. 27, 2013
Frames: 32×300″
Integration: 2.7 hours

Author: Andrew Lockwood
AstroPhotography of the day by SPONLI
15 June 2014

Orion Nebula

The Orion Nebula is one of the most scrutinized and photographed objects in the night sky, and is among the most intensely studied celestial features. The nebula has revealed much about the process of how stars and planetary systems are formed from collapsing clouds of gas and dust. Astronomers have directly observed protoplanetary disks, brown dwarfs, intense and turbulent motions of the gas, and the photo-ionizing effects of massive nearby stars in the nebula.

The entirety of the Orion Nebula extends across a 1° region of the sky, and includes neutral clouds of gas and dust, associations of stars,ionized volumes of gas, and reflection nebulae.

The nebula forms a roughly spherical cloud that peaks in density near the core. The cloud has a temperature ranging up to 10,000 K, but this temperature falls dramatically near the edge of the nebula. Unlike the density distribution, the cloud displays a range of velocities and turbulence, particularly around the core region. Relative movements are up to 10 km/s (22,000 mi/h), with local variations of up to 50 km/s and possibly more.

Imaging telescopes or lenses: Skywatcher Esprit 80ED
Imaging cameras: Canon 600D
Mounts: Sky-Watcher HEQ5 PRO
Guiding telescopes or lenses: Celestron 80mm Guidescope
Guiding cameras: Sky-Watcher Synguider
Software: PixInsight, Adobe Photoshop, BinaryRivers BackyardEOS
Dates: Feb. 17, 2014
Frames:
10×120″ ISO400
20×180″ ISO400
20×30″ ISO400
20×60″ ISO400
Integration: 1.8 hours
Darks: ~20
Flats: ~20
Bias: ~20

Author: Peter Folkesson

AstroPhotography of the day by SPONLI
18 May 2014

M42: The Orion Nebula

Interstellar clouds like the Orion Nebula are found throughout galaxies such as the Milky Way. They begin as gravitationally bound blobs of cold, neutral hydrogen, intermixed with traces of other elements. The cloud can contain hundreds of thousands of solar masses and extend for hundreds of light years. The tiny force of gravity that could compel the cloud to collapse is counterbalanced by the very faint pressure of the gas in the cloud.

Whether due to collisions with a spiral arm, or through the shock wave emitted from supernovae, the atoms are precipitated into heavier molecules and the result is a molecular cloud. This presages the formation of stars within the cloud, usually thought to be within a period of 10-30 million years, as regions pass the Jeans mass and the destabilized volumes collapse into disks. The disk concentrates at the core to form a star, which may be surrounded by a protoplanetary disk. This is the current stage of evolution of the nebula, with additional stars still forming from the collapsing molecular cloud. The youngest and brightest stars we now see in the Orion Nebula are thought to be less than 300,000 years old, and the brightest may be only 10,000 years in age.

Some of these collapsing stars can be particularly massive, and can emit large quantities of ionizing ultraviolet radiation. An example of this is seen with the Trapezium cluster. Over time the ultraviolet light from the massive stars at the center of the nebula will push away the surrounding gas and dust in a process called photo evaporation. This process is responsible for creating the interior cavity of the nebula, allowing the stars at the core to be viewed from Earth.The largest of these stars have short life spans and will evolve to become supernovae.

Within about 100,000 years, most of the gas and dust will be ejected. The remains will form a young open cluster, a cluster of bright, young stars surrounded by wispy filaments from the former cloud. The Pleiades is a famous example of such a cluster.
Imaging telescopes or lenses: Sky-Watcher 200/1000 Black Diamond
Mounts: CGEM
Guiding telescopes or lenses: Lunatico Astronomia EZG-60
Guiding cameras: Lunatico Astronomia QHY5-II
Software: Photoshop CS6, PixInsight LE, DeepSkyStacker 3.3.3
Accessories: Baader MPCC Corrector de Coma
Dates: Nov. 10, 2013
Frames:
8×120″ ISO1600 bin 1×1
29×60″ ISO1600 bin 1×1
Integration: 0.8 hours
Bias: ~150

Author: Jose Fco. Del Aguila
AstroPhotography of the day by SPONLI 10 May 2014

The Orion Nebula

The Orion Nebula (M42, or NGC 1976) is a diffuse nebula situated south of Orion’s Belt in the constellation of Orion. It is one of the brightest nebulae, and is visible to the naked eye in the night sky. M42 is located at a distance of 1,344 ± 20 light years and is the closest region of massive star formation to Earth. The M42 nebula is estimated to be 24 light years across. It has a mass of about 2000 times the mass of the Sun.

Imaging telescopes or lenses: Intes Micro MN84
Imaging cameras: QSI 583 wsg
Mounts: Astro-Physics 1200 GTO
Guiding cameras: Starlight Xpress Lodestar
Software: Adobe Photoshop CC, PixInsight
Filters: Astrodon Luminance, Astrodon RGB filter set
Dates: Jan. 1, 2014
Frames: 108×600″
Integration: 18.0 hours

Author: Dean Salman

AstroPhotography of the day by SPONLI
17 April 2014

M42: Inside the Orion Nebula

Image Credit: R. Villaverde, Hubble Legacy Archive, NASA

The Great Nebula in Orion, an immense, nearby starbirth region, is probably the most famous of all astronomical nebulas. Here, glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellarmolecular cloud only 1500 light-years away. In the above deep image composite in assigned colors taken by the Hubble Space Telescope wisps and sheets of dust and gas are particularly evident. The Great Nebula in Orion can be found with the unaided eye near the easily identifiable belt of three stars in the popular constellation Orion. In addition to housing a bright open cluster of stars known as the Trapezium, the Orion Nebulacontains many stellar nurseries. These nurseries contain much hydrogen gas, hot young stars, proplyds, and stellar jets spewing material at high speeds. Also known as M42, the Orion Nebula spans about 40 light years and is located in the same spiral arm of our Galaxy as the Sun.

NASA APOD 08-Apr-14

Orion Nebula in Surrounding Dust

Image Credit & Copyright: Robert Fields

Explanation: What surrounds a hotbed of star formation? In the case of the Orion Nebula — dust. The entire Orion field, located about 1600 light years away, is inundated with intricate and picturesque filaments of dust.Opaque to visible light, dust is created in the outer atmosphere of massive cool stars and expelled by a strong outer wind of particles. The Trapezium and other forming star clusters are embedded in the nebula. The intricate filaments of dust surrounding M42 and M43 appear gray in the above image, while central glowing gas is highlighted in brown and blue. Over the next few million years much of Orion’s dust will be slowly destroyed by the very stars now being formed, or dispersed into the Galaxy.

NASA APOD 25-Mar-2014

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts:

Related posts: