11th March 2021
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| M42 |
March? So what happened to January and February I hear you say. Well cloudy skies that's what happened. Yes there were some partly clear moonless nights but never at at a convenient time and yes there were one or two nights I just didn't feel like it. However with Orion rapidly sinking towards the early spring evening horizon a clear night in early March saw me setting the telescope up for the first time this year.
M42 The first object viewed this year was the last one I looked at last year namely the Great Nebula itself. Of all the deep sky objects on my tour this is the most spectacular and even with a short exposure time the Infinity camera brings out a lot of the structure and colour that fills the field of view. M43 is the smaller nebula to the north of M42.
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| NGC 2024 |
NGC 2024 Large emission nebula similar in size to M42 lies just east of Alnitak the eastern star of Orion's belt. Ultraviolet light from the star causes the nebula to emit light. A cluster of young stars apparently lies behind the dark gas and dust obscuring the central regions.
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| NGC 1999 |
NGC 1999 From huge emission nebula just observed this small 1.5 arc minute reflection nebula is quite a contrast. It surrounds and is lit by the variable star V380 Orionis. The dark patch in the center is now believed to be a hole in the cloud rather than dark material. This is my first observation of this object.
NGC 1788 Another reflection nebula surrounding some tenth magnitude stars and is rather faint on my image.
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| NGC 1973 |
NGC 1973 Large reflection nebula to north of M42. Rather nice blue colour. The darker lanes bisecting the nebula form the well known "Running Man" feature.
