Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Orion (Ori)  ·  Contains:  18 Ori  ·  19 Ori)  ·  19 bet Ori  ·  2 Mon  ·  21 Ori  ·  24 Ori)  ·  24 gam Ori  ·  28 Ori)  ·  3 Mon  ·  34 Ori)  ·  37 phi01 Ori  ·  38 n02 Ori  ·  44 Ori)  ·  45 Ori  ·  46 Ori)  ·  48 sig Ori  ·  49 d Ori  ·  50 Ori)  ·  53 Ori)  ·  55 Ori  ·  58 Ori)  ·  59 Ori  ·  60 Ori  ·  67 Eri)  ·  69 lam Eri  ·  Al Mankib  ·  Algebar (β Ori  ·  B223  ·  B224  ·  B36  ·  And 1509 more.
Orion molecular cloud complex, Leonardo Quaggiotto
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Orion molecular cloud complex

Orion molecular cloud complex, Leonardo Quaggiotto
Powered byPixInsight

Orion molecular cloud complex

Equipment

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Acquisition details

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Description

It was hard.

The first evening was dedicated to acquiring the stars, and I did it from the balcony of my house to have all the equipment available in case of problems, which indeed there were.

First I mounted the astronomical camera with the 50mm lens, but I realized that it was impossible to focus manually, I didn't know that manual focus is also driven by the focus knobs.

So I disassembled everything and fixed the Canon 250D with its lens by placing the L-Pro clip filter in between and connected it to the PC to guide it with N.I.N.A., however focusing before connecting it.

Apart from a few small hiccups it went well, even if the light pollution with such a short focal length is tremendous.

The second evening, dedicated to the narrow band, was at the MarSEC Observatory in Marana di Crespadoro, mounting the L-eXtreme filter for the nebula fixed with adhesive tape in front of the camera lens (before buying the adapter I wanted to see the result).

In both cases my iOptron Gem28 mount gave me great satisfaction, at home I simply positioned the mount in the usual position, while at MarSEC I performed the polar alignment with the iPolar of the mount.

Then nothing else, no 3-point alignment of N.I.N.A. nor alignment to 1, 2 or 3 stars of the mount and the tracking has always been perfect allowing me exposures of 300 seconds with nice round stars.

In the integration I used narrowband shots for the nebula and RGB shots for the stars.
I shot the color of the nebulae a little, and the M42 and the Flame are overexposed, but the result was above my expectations, this nebula complex is truly spectacular.

Integration and processing: PixInsight and Photoshop.

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Sky plot

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Orion molecular cloud complex, Leonardo Quaggiotto