Orion Belt to Sword

Alnitak, Anilam, the Flame (NGC2024), Horsehead (IC434), Running Man (Sh2-279) and Great Nebula of Orion (M42). 
 4 hours of #NBOSC exposures on 2025-12-12 under Bortle 3 skies from Bad Wolf Ranch, Texas. I've made a similar image as a three tile mosaic with my ASI533. It was great being able to capture this beautiful expanse in a single image. Many think that you need to use HDR multiple exposure time techniques to keep the core of M42 from blowing out. With careful stretching it was no problem with the over 500 30" exosures through this f/5 telescope.

WO RedCat 250/51mm, Baader SkyGlow filter, ASI2600 MC camera, ASIAIR Plus controller, AM5N mount. 251 30" exposures stacked and processed in PixInsight with RC-Astro and SetiAstro tools. Final exp and crop in Affinity Photo

I've also created a 100 MegaPixel 2X drizzle stacked version of this image using the VerLux HyperMetric Stretch script in PixInsight. The VeraLux script makes stretching especially for a very high dynamic range image like this much easier and it captures more color from the linear data. All images link to full resolution versions.

Below are some crops of the detail in this image:

A plate solved image:

Content created: 2025-12-13 and last modified: 2025-12-17

     

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