The winter constellation of Orion contains a rich region of star formation and near Orion's belt are some fine areas of nebulosity where emerging new stars light up the clouds of dust and gas from which they formed.

The above 11 minute observation, taken on the 2nd March 2006, shows the three bright stars of Orion's belt (from left to right ζ, ε and δ) together with his sword that hangs from it. The most prominent nebula, M42, is found in this sword and looks a bit like an inverted fan. An enlarged view of this nebula is shown below:-

Within the core of this nebula is a tightly packed group of very young blue stars (called the Trapezium) and these hot stars are responsible for heating up the surrounding gas until it has begun to glow by itself. Immediately above the fan of M42, and surrounding a single star, is a small area of nebulosity designated M43.

There are other areas of nebulosity close by. Above M42/M43, is an area of blue coloured nebulosity that has been broken into three designations because of a dark lane of intervening dust - NGC1973, NGC1975 and NGC1977. This feature has also been dubbed the "running man nebula" because the dark lane looks like a figure running (he appears on his side in the above image). This area of nebulosity is a reflection nebula and results from starlight scattering from nearby dust.

Going back up to Orion's belt, and looking at the area around ζ Orionis, further nebulae can be observed.

An enlarged view around this star is seen above. The most prominent nebulosity is NGC2024 and called, appropriately, the "flame nebula". It too is partially obscured by a foreground dust lane. South of this, and below ζ Orionis, are two more patches of light that are much less obvious in this photograph. The first is IC434, the famous Horsehead Nebula, which can be seen as a faint red line pointing at ζ Orionis (the horse's head is almost too faint to be distinguished). The other is NGC2023 which is a faint patch of nebulosity around a star just above IC434.

To obtain this 11 minute observation my Fuji S2 Pro digital SLR was mounted on a driven GEM equatorial mount and 22x30s frames taken at ISO 400. A Sigma APO 70-200mm lens was used at 178mm. Short exposures were taken so as to minimise tracking errors. The 22 frames were then combined together in Adobe Photoshop in a "pairwise" fashion; pairs of 30s frames were overlaid at 50% transparency and then merged into a new image when the stars registered at the same locations. This was repeated until a final 11 minute averaged frame was obtained. The image was then modified using levels and curves in Photoshop.

The observational details of this image are given below:-