Full view for maximum effect.

The Great Orion Nebula (M42) in Orion.

M42 is easily visible to the naked eye as a fuzzy patch in the middle of Orion's sword. What we call the Great Orion Nebula is just the central part of a larger cloud that stretches across several hundred light years.

Four bright stars in a parallelogram near the nebula's centre form the Trapezium, often referred to as "The Trap". These hot young stars heat up the surrounding gas clouds, causing the nebula to emit light.

The Great Orion Nebula is full of hot, bright blue stars and is an area of active star formation. The Hubble Space Telescope has found protoplanetary disks of gas and dust around some of these stars. These disks are about twice the size of our solar system, and may eventually condense to form extrasolar planets.

M42 is a veritable catalog of different object types, including multiple stars and reflection and emission nebulosity. The wealth of detail visible in this nebula is breathtaking. Intricate wisps, shapes and the contrast between brighter and darker regions never ceases to amaze. People often are overwhelmed by the immense amount of light emitted that they often report of seeing a hazy green colour through the eyepiece. I've heard of some people even reporting a pink tinge.

This composite consists of three sets of images; one set of 10 images taken at ISO-1600, one set of 10 images taken at ISO-800 and one set of 6 images taken at ISO-100.
Each individual image was a 30 second exposure.
IRIS was used to calibrate each image (dark subtraction [median combined master dark] and flat field division [median combined master flat {lights and offsets}]), to register, align, and finally stack.
Photoshop CS2 was used to adjust levels, frame and resize the final composite.

Target: The Great Orion Nebula (M42) in Orion
Date: Saturday, January 28th, 2006
Time: First image: 10:27 PM
Time: Last image: 11:21 PM
Location: Lostock, NSW, Australia
Camera: Canon EOS-350D (unmodified)
Lens: N/A
Focal length: 2000mm
Mount: Meade 8" LX90 LNT (F/10)
Alignment: Equatorial; via equatorial wedge
Exposure: 6 x 30 seconds @ ISO-100, 10 x 30 seconds @ ISO-800 and 10 x 30 seconds @ ISO-1600 (RAW)
Software: IRIS: Calibration, registration, stacking; Adobe Photoshop CS2: post-processing and framing