The Orion Nebula is the very first Nebula that I photographed when I started my astrophotography journey, February 9, 2022, with my Canon 35-millimeter digital camera, and a standard camera tripod.

• This image is with my 8-inch aperture telescope, Edge HD 8”.  Due to the magnification of this telescope, I could only capture most of the Orion Nebula.

The Orion Nebula which is designated M42 (Messier classification or NGC1976 (New General Catalogue)) and is one of the brightest nebulae in the night sky (it is even visible in areas of light pollution with the unaided eye).  The Orion Nebula is the middle “star” of the “sword” of the Orion Constellation.  The nebula is ~1500 light years from Earth (the closest star forming region to Earth), and has an estimated dimension of 24 light years.  The Orion Nebula is also often referred to as the Great Nebula in Orion or the Great Orion Nebula.

The Orion Nebula is an Emission Nebula (the emissions of the stars within the nebula are causing the gas we see to shine brightly) and is one of the most scrutinized and heavily studied celestial objects in the night sky.  This nebula has revealed much about the process of how stars are formed from collapsing clouds of gas and dust.  The bright, central region of the nebula is home to four massive, young stars called the Trapezium (aka Orion Trapezium Cluster) because they occur in a trapezoidal pattern.  This “core” of stars, Theta-1 Orionis, makes this portion of the nebula very bright (this is actually the part whose combined light forms the middle “star” of Orion’s Sword), and makes the processing of this nebula complicated, as it is very easy to overexpose this portion of the nebula.

M43 (aka NGC1982) is the small portion of the nebula separated by the dark lane of dust (known as the northeast dark lane) from the main Orion Nebula.  This portion of the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex is called De Mairan’s Nebula, after the French Astronomer Jean-Jacques d’Ortous de Mairan.  The main ionizing star in this nebula is HD37061, which is actually a triple star system.

There are several other objects in this image that are all associated with the Orion Nebula:

NGC1980:  Often referred to as the Lost Jewel of Orion, is a young open cluster of stars, with the brightest star being Iota Orionis, at an estimated distance of 1800 light years.  Recent research has determined that this is actually a separate celestial object that is slightly older than the stars in the Trapezium.

The Running Man Nebula is a Reflection nebula near the larger Orion Nebula, and is actually composed of three nebulae (NGC1973, NGC1975, and NGC1977).  Reflection nebulae are clouds of interstellar dust which might reflect the light of a nearby star or stars. The energy from the nearby stars is insufficient to ionize the gas of the nebula to create an emission nebula, but is enough to give sufficient scattering to make the dust visible.  The whole Running Man Nebula is believed to be illuminated and excited by 42 Orionis (HD37018), a very young B-2 blue giant star. 42 Orionis has a mass 12 times that of the Sun and a surface temperature of 25,400 K. Another key star is 45 Orionis, another massive young star (possibly a yellow giant or subgiant).

NGC1977 (also known as Sharpless (SH) 2-279):  This portion of the nebula is also known as the Ghost Nebula as it resembles a classic cartoon ghost, with its pointed head and wavy arms and legs. NGC1975 and NGC1973 are both reflection nebulae.

NCG1981 is an Open Star Cluster, consisting of 20 bright stars (magnitude 6.3 and brighter) and is the topmost “star” in Orion’s sword. 

The images shot from the telescope were shot with the ZWO Dual Narrowband filter which is great for heavy light pollution areas (like mine), bright moonlight, and allows light transmission in two main frequency regions:
1.     Hydrogen Alpha (Ha) (red) at 656.3 nm with a bandwidth of 15nm
2.     Oxygen III (Oiii) (blue) at 500.7 nm with a bandwidth of 35nm ·       

Celestron Edge HD 8” Setup
o   Mount: EQ6R-Proo   Telescope: Celestron Edge HD 8” with Celestron 0.7 Reducer – Focal Length is 1422mm with F7 aperture
o   Guiding: Celestron OAG (Off-Axis Guider) and ZWO 290MM camera
o   ZWO ASI2600MC Pro; Camera cooled to -10 deg C, with IDAZ Duo-Band Narrowband Light Pollution Reduction Filter
o   Bortle-9 – South Los Angeles shot from my backyard
o   Integration Time: 2 Hours 33 Minutes; Lights (51 @ 180 seconds); Darks (30 @ 180 seconds); Flats (30) & Dark Flats (30)