The Orion Nebula, Messier 42, one of the brightest nebulas in the sky, glowing brightly like an island amid the much fainter clouds of stardust and gas that pervades the region. The bright young stars at the core of the nebula (here overexposed) light up the nearby gas clouds. The area is also filled with clusters of hot blue stars, such as NGC 1981 at top and NGC 1980 at bottom. Just above the main mass of the Orion Nebula is the blueish “Running Man Nebula,” the reflection nebula NGC 1975. Some faint parallel streaks runnign horizontally across the image are trails from geostationary satellites that did not completely subtract when stacking the images in Median Combine mode as each frame had trails. This is a stack of 10 x 6 minute exposures with the TMB 92mm apo refractor at f/4.4 with the Borg 0.85x field flattener/reducer and the filter-modified Canon 5D MkII at ISO 800. Taken from New Mexico, Nov 27, 2014, U.S. Thanksgiving Day.
Messier 44, the Beehive or Praesepe star cluster in Cancer, through the 105mm Astro-Physics Traveler apo refractor with the Hotech field flattener for f/5.8 and in a stack of 11 x 4-minute exposures at ISO 800 with the Canon 6D MkII camera. Taken on a slightly hazy night on March 25, 2019, thus the natural star glows – the cluster is not surrounded by nebulosity! However, the sky is clear enough that some of the very faint IC, UGC, and PGC galaxies in the field show up. Most are 15th to 17th magnitude. I’ve punched up the star colours with a star mask. Stars tightened with StarShrink filter. Diffraction spikes added in post with Astronomy Tools actions.
