Daily Image
11-04-2007
Stellar Nursery
| Submitter: | Albert van Duin |
| Description: | 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 about 1,500 light years away, and is the closest region of star formation to Earth. The M42 nebula is estimated to be 30 light years across. Older texts frequently referred to the Orion Nebula as the Great Nebula. The Orion Nebula is considered to be one of the most scrutinized and photographed objects in the night sky, and is among the most intensely-studied celestial features. The nebula has revealed much about the process of how stars and planetary systems are formed from collapsing clouds of gas and dust. Astronomers have directly observed protoplanetary disks, brown dwarfs, intense and turbulent motions of the gas, and the photo-ionizing effects of massive nearby stars in the nebula. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_Nebula The image above is a combination of different exposures, ranging from 5 to 120 seconds. These images were layered in Photoshop. This is necessary to cover the wide dynamic range of this object, otherwise the bright core would be overexposed. Date: January 14, 2007. The image was made in Beilen with a 20cm ASA Astrograph and a modified Canon 350D DSLR-camera. Total exposure time was about 32 minutes. |
| Copyright: | Albert van Duin |
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