Here's a good closeup of Orion's nebula, sometimes referred to as Orion's sword (because it's the second "star" in orion's sword). This is a composite of 10 exposures, 4 3 minute exposures, 3 30 second exposures and 3 10 second exposures. The orion nebula is so bright that the core area, AKA the trapezium, blows out after only about 30 seconds, so in this composite, the core is replaced with the shorter exposures thus exposing the trapezium area. This was shot with a 10" newtonian telescope from Anttler's optics, canon 350xt, losmandy g11 mount and hutech IDAS light pollution filter. Internal noise reduction was on in the camera. This was also the maiden voyage of my new guidance system, the orion autoguider... it's very rare that I get new equipment working the first night, even rarer that it works flawlessly, so this was quite a good night for me (Dec 25th).
One last note about this shot, take out a pair of binoculars and take a look for yourself. This is the second star in orion's sword, to the eye it will appear greyish green, but long exposure photography reveals its true color.
Post challenge: WOW!!! I can't tell you how honored I am to get an HM amongst all the amazing photographers on this site in a FS no less. This whole week I thought the score would eventually tank but held at 7.1 and then crawled back up. I want to thank Kali for talking me into going with orion as I originally submitted the running man nebula . I had gone out to the observatory on Christmas day eve to test out my new guiding system with the intention of shooting the running man, the orion nebula was an afterthought... but she told me to give it a shot, so thank you Kali! Also, thanks for all the comments, and a posthumous and k10DGuy comment on the same image...
For those interested in the how to aspect of this image, I wrote up a tutorial, it's two years old, but still holds true (although I've upgraded the telescope)... how to
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Place: 4 out of 407 Avg (all users): 7.2469 Avg (commenters): 8.7500 Avg (participants): 7.3796 Avg (non-participants): 6.9815 Views since voting: 4721 Views during voting: 348 Votes: 162 Comments: 54 Favorites: 28 (view)
I love astronomy. And I absolutely love gazing at celestial objects. Wonderful photograph! Who gave this a 1?!?! How can anyone give any decent image of a nebula a one?!??
Nice to see the astrophotography coming into its own amongst the voters, rather than being an obsession of a relative few afficionados. Congrats on the top-5 finish!
From time immemorial it had prowled the universe. It had spawned countless legends and horrors and tales in countless cultures and peoples and civilizations. For a few unlucky worlds, they didn't even have time to create a tale, as it devoured them before they knew it was there.
In our own cultures, it was known in many forms. Cthulu, Satan and the Kraken were borne from the feelings of dread and evil, but it also spawned myths and gods of good as well. The Nephalim, Jehova, and angels of many names and origins.
However, unlike those mentioned above, it was very real, and it was very hungry, and one day it would devour everything. For that was it's purpose. To cleanse the universe for a time when it would begin anew.
So it roamed, and so it consumed, and so legends would continue to be formed.
Holy shit, dude. You've got some wicked mad skills. This is truly awesome (and I use that word in the Bear_Music sense). I'm gonna 10 you up right off the bat.
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