Full-sized image (1300 x 1030)
One of the brightest nebulae in Northern Hemisphere skies, the Orion Nebula is visible to the naked eye as the "sword of Orion" below the three stars marking his belt. This wide-field view shows both the Orion Nebula and to its left the Running Man nebula (NGC 1977-1978).
Image details:
Takahashi Sky 90 at f/4.12 (with flattener/reducer for FS78)
StarlightXpress HX916 CCD Camera
Astro-Physics AP900GTO German Equatorial Mount
SBIG CFW-8A Color Filter Wheel
An LRGB image, with the Luminance frame being a combination of 60 minutes through a Shuler H-Alpha filter and 20 minutes through a red filter. RGB exposure times were 20:16:18.
Taken in December 2003, from my backyard in Escondido, California. Two thin wooden shish-kebab skewers were crossed and taped in front of the Sky90's lens to create the diffraction spikes on the stars.
Image capture and sequencing was done with MaximDL/CCD, sub-frames were Sigma combined with Russ Croman's Sigma plugin for MaximDL/CCD, and the final LRGB layering, mosaic assembly, and image adjustments were done in PhotoShop 7.0.