Messier 41, open star cluster below Sirius in Canis Major. This is a stack of 4 x 6 minute exposures at ISO 800 with the Canon 5D MkII and Astro-Physics Traveler 105mm apo refractor, shot from Timor Cottage, Coonabarabran, NSW, Australia, December 2012.
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 (M) 44, aka the Beehive Cluster or the Praesepe, in Cancer, shot on a night with high thin haze, adding the star glows. The cluster is framed to include its flanking stars Asellus Borealis (Gamma Cancri) at top and Asellus Australis (Delta Cancri) at bottom. North is up. Several tiny 15th magnitude galaxies are in the field, despite the less than ideal sky conditions. This is a stack of 19 x 4-minute exposures at ISO 800 with the Canon EOS Ra, and through the SharpStar 94mm EDPH api refractor and its reducer/flattener at f/4.5.
