File:A 62-hour widefield image of Orion - Flickr - William Ostling.png

Full write-up here: theastroenthusiast.com/a-62-hour-widefield-image-of-orion/

The dark Horsehead Nebula and the glowing Orion Nebula are contrasting cosmic vistas. Adrift 1,500 light-years away in one of the night sky’s most recognizable constellations, they appear in opposite corners of the above stunning mosaic. The familiar Horsehead nebula appears as a dark cloud, a small silhouette notched against the long red glow at the lower left. Alnitak is the easternmost star in Orion’s belt and is seen as the brightest star to the left of the Horsehead. Below Alnitak is the Flame Nebula, with clouds of bright emission and dramatic dark dust lanes. The magnificent emission region, the Orion Nebula (aka M42), lies at the upper right. Immediately to its left is a prominent reflection nebula sometimes called the Running Man. Pervasive tendrils of glowing hydrogen gas are easily traced throughout the region.

This is easily one of my most ambitious astrophotography projects to date. Given that I’m fairly limited by my dslr in terms of imaging very dim objects, I decided to dump as much time on Orion as possible to see how much dust and gas in the region I could reveal. I was struck by how much wispy H-alpha gas didn’t line up exactly with the dust in the region – it was very cool to see the differences in ionized and non-ionized gas.

Website: theastroenthusiast.com/