Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Orion (Ori)
Sharpless 278 - A mountain of dust in Orion, Stefan Nebl
Sharpless 278 - A mountain of dust in Orion
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Sharpless 278 - A mountain of dust in Orion

Sharpless 278 - A mountain of dust in Orion, Stefan Nebl
Sharpless 278 - A mountain of dust in Orion
Powered byPixInsight

Sharpless 278 - A mountain of dust in Orion

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Description

Last year I took a widefield image of the entire Orion constellation and noticed an interesting little mountain-shaped nebula in between M42 and the Witch Head nebula. I looked into it and found it's cataloged as SH2-278. I couldn't find many deep exposures of it, so decided to give it a go, and definitely wasn't disappointed!

There's so much going on in this area, gorgeous blue puffs of reflection nebulae, the brown of the molecular cloud, pretty red emission highlights on the edge as well as some HH objects embedded within, and even a few little spiral galaxies in the background.

I wanted more exposure time, but La Nina had other plans, so this is just over 9 hours of LRGB in total from Bortle 2. Hope you all enjoy the view as much as I do!
It is likely a remnant of the Orion molecular cloud that formed some of the largest stars in Orion, and is now being shaped by the stellar wind from these powerful stars.

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Sharpless 278 - A mountain of dust in Orion, Stefan Nebl