Great Orion Nebula

My latest image of M42, the Great Orion Nebula. Visible to the naked eye, it is ~1,400 light years away.

This was my first astrophotography target, and I have another go at it each year. I added in some Hydrogen-alpha, it really brought out the red in the nebula and the background.

Final imaging time was approximately 21 hours with exposures ranging from 10s to 5min to bring out details without over exposing the core. I still have some slight overexposure in the middle, next time I may throw in some 5 second exposures.

I used a mono Astro camera and filter wheel to capture the HaLRGB image. The camera was attached to a Canon 70-200 f/2.8 L II lens at 200mm, using an Astromechanics lens focuser.

M42 makes is a fun target for beginners or advanced astrophotographers. See more details, and some of my earlier attempts, at https://photo-adventure.com/2021_gre​at-orion-nebula

Stunning!

A crowd pleaser for the first time or the 10,,,,,time.

Thanks for sharing.

Beautiful version of old faithful.
Interesting diffraction spikes on the brighter stars off the lens aperture I presume. Did you stop down any or was this wide open at f2.8?

SiriusDoggy - the star spikes are an unfortunate side effect of my setup. I’m using a camera lens that I stop down a couple stops for better image quality. That, unfortunately causes the spikes. Then I attach that lens to an ASI1600mm-pro which aggravates the situation with its micro-lensing effect. That is widening the spikes.

After my last few shots of the Pleiades (which are really unusable due to the spikes, I am looking into a small refractor or 3D printing some covers to reduce the lens aperture instead of stopping down the lens.

Nice! Thanks for your explanation as well.