Messier M42 NGC1976 Orion Nebula - 3/1/2011 (Processed stack)

The 'Great Orion Nebula' is located in the sword of Orion and is one of the brightest nebula in the sky, and perhaps the best known. It is a young star formation region with very hot high-UV stars ionising and 'lighting' the nebula.The brightness of these young stars make this an astrophotography challenge as the central regions are very bright in comparison to the tenous outer nebula and over exposure becomes a problem. High Dynamic Range (HDR) techniques must be used to produce an image with a 'flattened' brightness range, more akin to the way the human eye perceives a wide range of brightness.

To the northeast (right as shown) of the Orion Nebula is the 'Running Man Nebula' a blue reflection nebula, caused by reflected light on a dark non-ionised region of nebulosity.

HDR re-attempt, done in early 2012, using DeepSkyStacker 3.3.2 Stacking 80% of:
12 Images ISO 800, 15 Sec, 6 DARK, 0 BIAS, 0 FLATS (see also separate stack)
6 Images ISO 800, 30 Sec, 32 DARK, 0 BIAS, 0 FLATS (see also separate stack)
20 Images ISO 800, 120 Sec, 11 DARK, 0 BIAS, 0 FLATS (see also separate stack)
Post processed with Adobe Photoshop CS5

Telescope - Apogee OrthoStar LOMO 80/480 with Hotech SCA T-Adapter, Hutech IDAS LPS-P2 filter, Canon 400D DSLR, Ambient xxC (not recorded). Mount - Skywatcher NEQ6 Pro. Guidescope - Orion ShortTube 80 with Star Shoot Auto Guider.

MessierM42 Orion NebulaNGCNGC1976 M42 Orion NebulaGalactic NebulaNGC1977 Running Man Nebula

From 2011 Honing of Skills