Orion
by Vern on Dec.04, 2005, under Astronomy, Deep sky, Diffuse Nebula
It is now about 2 am in the morning. It has been a beautiful evening, the sky is very transparent, no wind, air turbulence is fair (6/10), and temperature is around 23 deg. F. 
Above image of M42 taken with Stellarvue A1010 and Canon 300D. Tonight, through a 32 mm eyepeice on the Nexstar11, M42 looked three dimensional with subtle shades of blue and red visible in the nebulocity.
I put on the Stellacam2 and 0.33 focal reducer. I tried to find B33, the horsehead, but no luck seeing it with the Stellacam2.
For the past hour, I’ve been exploring the region to the west of M42. Some amazing structures visible on the monitor.
4 comments for this entry:
December 4th, 2005 on 6:09 am
Thats a really nice image!!
December 4th, 2005 on 10:45 am
Very impressive images, particularly the last one showing the detail of M42 nebula. It is one of the most amazing deep sky objects which shows much structure to the urban and suburban observers. Those variations in brightness really give a 3D effect.
In the first image, the red represents nebulousity, and is that NGC1977 north of M43? Are you able to see this nebulosity through the eyepeice?
Thanks, peter
December 4th, 2005 on 12:37 pm
Peter,
According to the star charts it is indeed, great observation! I didn’t view the NGC1977 area in the eyepiece. The image was from some 30 sec test shots I took about 10 days ago to check the field of view when using the 300D with an A1010 refractor. I think I like widefield images taken with short (30 sec) exposures. It somewhat represents what is visible in a small scope. At the same time it is quite easy to match up with a star chart. I may try taking more similar images.
Oh I did check out M1 last week, the “gully” you noted was not visible in my C11. It was easily visible in Gary’s scope (course he has a 30 inch dob!). Observations were from a semi-urban location about 10 miles north of here. (Not great dark skies at his place, but lot better than I have here. The Milky Way was just barely visible.
Vern
December 5th, 2005 on 2:30 am
Fantastic pair of images! I especially love the first one.