Astrophotography - Orion Nebula Core Details...

Dear Friends,

On the Night of 22nd Jan me and Nilesh Desai tried to capture Beautiful Core of Orion Nebula in the Constellation of Orion.

The Orion Nebula (also known as Messier 42, M42, or NGC 1976) is a diffuse nebula situated south of Orion's Belt. It is one of the brightest nebulae, and is visible to the naked eye in the night sky. M42 is located at a distance of 1,344 ± 20 light years and is the closest region of massive star formation to Earth. The M42 nebula is estimated to be 24 light years across.

The Nebula is in fact part of a much larger nebula that is known as the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex. The Orion Molecular Cloud Complex extends throughout the constellation of Orion and includes Barnard's Loop, the Horsehead Nebula, M43, M78 and the Flame Nebula. Stars are forming throughout the Orion Nebula, and due to this heat-intensive process the region is particularly prominent in the infrared.

The Orion Nebula contains a very young open cluster, known as the Trapezium due to the asterism of its primary four stars. Two of these can be resolved into their component binary systems on nights with good seeing, giving a total of six stars. The stars of the Trapezium, along with many other stars, are still in their early years. The Trapezium may be a component of the much-larger Orion Nebula Cluster, an association of about 2,000 stars within a diameter of 20 light years. Two million years ago this cluster may have been the home of the runaway stars AE Aurigae, 53 Arietis, and Mu Columbae, which are currently moving away from the nebula at velocities greater than 100 km/s.

Observers have long noted a distinctive greenish tint to the nebula, in addition to regions of red and areas of blue-violet. The red hue is well-understood to be caused by Hα recombination line radiation at a wavelength of 656.3 nm. The blue-violet coloration is the reflected radiation from the massive O-class stars at the core of the nebula.

The green hue was a puzzle for astronomers in the early part of the 20th century because none of the known spectral lines at that time could explain it. There was some speculation that the lines were caused by a new element, and the name "nebulium" was coined for this mysterious material. With better understanding of atomic physics, however, it was later determined that the green spectra was caused by a low-probability electron transition in doubly ionized oxygen, a so-called "forbidden transition". This radiation was all but impossible to reproduce in the laboratory because it depended on the quiescent and nearly collision-free environment found in deep space.

Orion Nebula is the most observed and photographed object in the Sky. As a matter of fact on September 30, 1880, M42 was the first nebula to be successfully photographed, by Henry Draper. Consequently, on March 14, 1882, Henry Draper obtained a second, better, deeper, and more detailed photograph of the Orion Nebula, a 137-minutes exposure, which also clearly shows M43. Todays advancement in photography allows anyone to get better photos of Orion Nebula than what Henry got in 1882.

Its the object of Beginner Astrophotographers, I bate every astrophotographer starts with M42 as first deepsky object, so do we :D

This is our attempt to show beautiful details of the Core of Orion Nebula, which are normally lost in photos as its get overexposed but visible nicely when observed with Large Telescopes.

Here is the result of our attempt...


Comments and Critiques welcome..

Have a Nice Day
Sameer