Tuesday, March 03, 2015

Sword of Orion Region - B&W


This is, again, the Sword of Orion region in the Orion Constellation. It contains the Running Man Nebula to the left and the Great Orion Nebula to the right, both being massive star forming regions. Without a doubt, one of the most amazing visual and photographic night sky objects.

This is a combination of data taken several days ago, processed with data taken last year. I decided to leave this in black and white as it tends to illustrate the detail in the nebulosity much better than color.

 About 75 minutes (7, 4 and 1 minute frames)
- 5 * 3 minute dark frames
- 10 bias frames
- ISO 800
- Imaged with a Nikon D7000 and Astrotelescopes 80mm ED Refractor
- Guided with a Meade DSI and Orion SSAG through a William Optics 66mm Refractor
- Mounted on a Celestron CGEM
- Stacked in DSS
- Post processing in GIMP
- Mild tonemapping in Photomatix Pro
- Noise reduction in NeatImage

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Orion is quite possibly my favorite constellation, and this image (along with added information) made me love it even more. This is such a fantastic image, and it reminds me of how fantastic the universe can really be. Thank you for posting, and I can't wait to explore your blog more.

Your fellow astronomer,

Quill

Phil said...

Many thanks, Quill! Really appreciate your feedback. Clear skies!!!