Belt and Sword of Orion 2003
Uploaded: January 03, 2004
Orion is my favorite part of the sky. On the left, the bright star Alnitak is one of the three in Orion's belt, and it is surrounded by the aptly named Flame nebulae and Horsehead nebula as well as several others. On the right, the line of nebulae and clusters is what one sees as the three stars in Orion's sword. There are actually eleven named areas of nebulosity in this image, as well as four or five open star clusters. 10x180s at ISO800, Canon 10D and 70-200mm f/2.8L at 200mm and f/4.
Greg Harp
January 03, 2004
I guess I failed to include the details this time. I'll see if I can add some of this to the description.
This was shot with my Canon EOS 10D and EF 70-200mm f/2.8L lens set for 200mm and f/4 (because this otherwise great lens has some slight chromatic aberration at f/2.8).
This image is actually a averaged "stack" of ten three-minute exposures at ISO 800. The camera was mounted on a tracking equatorial mount along with a short telescope that was used as a "guide scope" to ensure that the stars remained fixed in the field of view.
I used an application called ImagesPlus to convert, calibrate, align, and stack these images into a master image that was then adjusted in Photoshop CS to get what you see here.
It's a lot of work, but it's rewarding. ;) #317066
Greg Harp
January 04, 2004
For reference, the full moon is about half a degree in diameter as viewed from Earth. Your fist held at arms length is about ten degrees across.
Attached are a couple of sky chart images showing where this is. The first image is a "portrait" of the constellation Orion, show it about how it should appear in the sky in the evening. The highlighted box shows the field of view of my photograph after being cropped. The second image has been zoomed in and rotated to approximate my photo.
These images were created using Cartes du Ciel ("Sky Charts"). #318787
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