Image of the Week, December 16, 2016

Orion the Hunter Mosaic, by Johann Nishant

Does this region of the sky look familiar to you? There is a high chance that most people have seen the familiar three stars of Orion’s Belt. Unseen to the naked eye, however, are the large swathes of interstellar dust and nebulae that our eyes perceive as emptiness. This region of the sky is highly active in star-formation with a large collection of young stars. This is a 5-panel mosaic of the Orion constellation.

Open up the higher resolution version and explore the different regions, notice the intense colours and the variations in structures.

See the high-resolution image here.

Do you notice a few completely black regions, without any stars, amidst the dust? These are dark nebulae, which are interstellar clouds with such a high density of dust that they obscure light from behind it.

Image

• 5 Panel Mosaic ( 3 Main Panels + 2 Filler Panels )
• Planned using Asimoplan
• Main Panel Light frames: 3 x 35 x 180” @ ISO800
• Filler Panel Light frames: 2 x 10 x 180” @ ISO800
• Dark frames: 15 x 180” @ ISO800
• Flat frames: 30 x 1/640″ @ ISO 800
• Bias frames: 30 x 1/8000” @ ISO800
• Guided with Orion SSAG using PHD2

Environmental

• Location: Hanle, Ladakh, India
• Sky Conditions: Extremely dark but seeing was not perfect

Main Equipment

• OTA: Samyang 135mm f/2 at f/2
• Mount: Sky-Watcher NEQ6
• Camera: CentralDS Cooled 5D Mark II Full Spectrum Modified with Cooler Off

Accessories

• Power-Supply: AC Mains
• Filter: Astronomik UV/IR Cut

Integration and Processing

• Processed in PixInsight 1.8
• Batch Preprocessing Script with Cosmetic Correction
• Dynamic Crop
• DBE
• Background Neutralisation
• Colour Calibration
• Histogram Transformation
• ACDNR
• Morphological Transform
• Saturation Curves
• LHE
• SCNR
• Final Mosaic Assembly in PS

About the photographer

Johann Nishant
Location: India
Website, Instagram

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