January | 2025 | WATCH THIS SPACE(MAN)

I get a warm feeling at the first view of the Orion constellation each year. Just viewed with the naked eye, late at night against a clear black sky it is a wonderful sight that somehow seems strangely reassuring but for the astronomer and especially astrophotographers, there are many exciting targets that hold great promise, principal of which is M42 the Great Orion Nebula. This winter my first view of Orion was last October, rising from the eastern horizon in the early morning, just as I was about to go to bed after a late-night imaging session. Unfortunately, it was more than two months before the weather relented and I was finally able to snatch an albeit brief image of the said Orion Nebula.

M42 and other nearby diffuse & reflection nebula (M43 & NGC1975 AKA the Running Man Nebula) is one of the most famous star-forming regions, which being the brightest nebula in the northern hemisphere and just over 1,300 light years distance from Earth, can itself also been seen with the naked eye on a clear night. To my surprise, I hadn’t imaged this beguiling object for 6-years, during which much had changed: a new mount, camera & filters + I had learned a few more processing tricks.

Left – Orion constellation from Fairvale Observatory, Redhill; Right – NB image from same location

The Orion Nebula is a gigantic cosmic cloud of interstellar dust and gas, which is the basis for the birth of numerous new stars or a “star nursery” (see starless image below) . Moreover, these powerful, young stars unleash vast streams of ultraviolet radiation that sculpt the nebula into a myriad of fantastic shapes, further highlighted by a red tint that arises due to the presence of hydrogen gas. For astronomers, such activities reveal much about the processes of how stars and planetary systems are formed from collapsing clouds of gas and dust.

Known as the Trapezium, four stars tightly located at the centre of M42 are very difficult to image, because of the overpowering bright white light that obscures this area from sight. However, for astrophotographers the elusive nature of the Triangulum is therefore considered to be the ultimate measure of a good Orion Nebula image. To overcome this problem, the key is to image the nebula across a range of exposures, from very short to long, which can then be compiled into a single final photograph that equally captures details of bright and darker areas alike.

Although poor weather conditions limited the shoot to a relatively short integration time, I’m pleased to say that the subsequent application of various new processing techniques (*see footnote for details) has created an exciting final image, full of detail and colour, as well as the aforesaid Triangulum, that I believe does justice to this magnificent object that is surely the real star of the winter night sky.

Processing Footnotes:

In addition to using the conventional LRGB processing workflow, to uncover the exciting detail that lies within the Great Orion Nebula on this occasion it was necessary to apply some additional processes. First, after ensuring perfect star alignment of all images, the three 180, 60 & 15 second exposure stacks are combined using HR Composition. At first the bright areas of the combined image still look blown-out but, as if by magic, careful application of HDR Multiscale Transformation then reveals the underlying details such as the Triangulum. Thereafter it’s all downhill, except in this case I was further assisted by the use of three new scripts that I can highly recommend:

Blemish Blaster by Seti Astro – helps remove inevitable blemishes of the starless image created by StarXTerminator process, which I found much easier to use than PixInsight’s Clone Stamp mostly with better results too;
Star Stretch also by Seti Astro – Makes the often-tricky action of stretching star images from StarXTerminator a complete doddle;
Astro Image Detail by Hidden Light Photography – An excellent script that makes a great job of teasing out detail from the nebula, that results in a really exciting final image.

IMAGING DETAILS
Object	M42 & more
Constellation	Orion
Distance	1,344 light-years
Size	65 x 60 arc minutes excluding The Running Man
Apparent Magnitude	+4.0

Scope	William Optics GT81 + Focal Reducer FL 382mm f4.72
Mount	ZWO AM5 + ASIair plus
Guiding	William Optics 50mm guide scope
	ZWO120MM mini
Camera	ZWO ASI294MM CMOS sensor
	FOV 2.87^o x 1.96^o Resolution 2.50”/pix Max. image size 4,144 x 2,822 pix
EFW	ZWOx8 EFW & 31mm Chroma LRGB filters
Capture & Processing	ASIair plus, Deep Sky Stacker & PixInsight v1.9.2
Image Location & Orientation	Centre = RA 05:35:26.25 DEC -05:25:21.10 Top = North
Exposures	L x25, R x14, G x14, B x10 @ 180 sec = 3hr 9min L x16, R x5, G x8, B x8, @ 60 sec = 20 min L x24, R x12, G x 12, B x12 @ 15 sec = 15 min Total lntegration Time: 3hr 44 min
	@ Gain 120 @ -15^oC
Calibration	10 x 180 sec Darks 20 x BB Flats & Dark Flats @ ADU 32,000
Location & Darkness	Fairvale Observatory – Redhill – Surrey – UK Typically Bortle 5-6
Date & Time	2^nd January 2025 @ +20.00h
Weather	Approx. <5^oC RH >=65% 🌙 Waxing 8%

Long periods of bad weather made 2024 one of the most difficult years for my astrophotography but, I am pleased to say that this, the 11^th calendar is another belter! Purchased in 2014, I continue to use a William Optics GT81 telescope for most images taken from home, but this means that I’m running out of suitable targets for this equipment. Part of the answer has been to upgrade related equipment and improve my processing, which I hope you will see reflected in this year’s images. Moreover, I have used new skills and techniques to process the better-quality data in new ways – I hope you like the results?

Below is a brief summary of the calendar images used this year but for other pictures and more detailed information, please refer elsewhere to this website, my Flickr page or Astrobin page. In addtion, a video of the calendar can be viewed HERE on YouTube, which is best accessed on a PC or smart TV screen. The background music this year is from Jean-Michel Jarre’s Oxygène album.

COVER	ASTRO IMAGING MONTAGE: This colourful splash is a random selection of images, mostly taken from Redhill over the past +10-years of my astrophotography.
JANUARY	SEAGULL NEBULA, IC 2177: Located 3,650 light-years from Earth is the emission and reflection nebula complex of the so-called Seagull Nebula, some 200 light-years in size. It’s been 8-years since imaging this object and for good reason. From my location, the bird flies very low on the southern horizon and thus spends much of its time behind houses, trees, and tall hedges!
FEBRUARY	TAURUS MOLECULAR CLOUD: Located northeast of the Pleiades, below (south) the California Nebula (see November), spanning more than 30^o of the night sky is the Taurus Molecular Cloud (TMC), a rich area of dark nebulae punctuated by bright areas of new star formation. The TMC is thought to be the nearest star forming region to Earth which, if you look carefully, includes numerous complex dark and reflection nebulae and the odd galaxy.
MARCH	*HIND’S VARIABLE NEBULA & HYADES, NGC 1555:** Discovered by the English astronomer John Russell Hind in 1852 this nebula is situated 400 light-years away in the constellation of Taurus, between the stars of Aldebaran and the Pleiades. The nebula is a Herbig-Haro object – a bright patch of nebulosity in which new stars are forming – which often change in apparent size and brightness.
APRIL	LEO GALAXY CLUSTER: With few exceptions, galaxies are located very far from Earth, making them very small from our perspective and a challenge for my equipment. However, here I imaged the spectacular Leo Galaxy Cluster, a mere 330 million light-years from Earth. Containing at least 70 major galaxies, the Leo Cluster unusually consists mostly of spiral galaxies. The bright elliptical galaxy near the centre of the image, has one of the largest known black holes in the universe, which is about 10 billion times more massive than our sun!
MAY	IRIS NEBULA, NGC 7023*: While the focus of the image is the alluring bright blue reflection nebula, careful processing reveals that this celestial flower is enveloped within a vast region of interstellar dust.
JUNE	SOMBRERO GALAXY, MESSIER 104: Seen from Redhill, the Sombrero galaxy is even lower in the summer sky than the aforesaid Seagull, transiting between the trees and along the top of our +15-foot hedge! An unbarred galaxy, its bright bulbous centre is encircled by dark dust lanes, which viewed side-on from Earth creates the appearance of a sombrero hat or perhaps a flying saucer?
JULY	PuWe-1*: Is a very faint planetary nebula in the Lynx constellation, discovered in 1980 by Purgathofer & Weinberger. It is one of the largest planetary nebulae visible, with a diameter like the full moon and at 1,200 light-years, is one of the closest to Earth. A planetary nebula is a region of cosmic gas and dust formed from the cast-off outer layers of a dying star; despite the name, planetary nebulae have nothing to do with planets.
AUGUST	NORTH AMERICA & PELICAN NEBULAE: It’s at this time of the year (August) I usually turn my attention to the Cygnus constellation and the plethora of imaging opportunities it provides, which inevitably tend to be narrowband targets. Interstellar dust illuminated by large bright areas of star formation are responsible for the formation of both these popular objects.
SEPTEMBER	FORSAKEN NEBULA, IC 5068: This complex area is known for the graphically shaped streaks of cold, dark dust clouds that criss-cross the dense, brightly coloured gas regions of nebulosity. Situated within the adjacent Cygnus molecular cloud just below the Pelican Nebula and close to other more famous objects, this low emission nebula is unfortunately known as the Forsaken Nebula!
OCTOBER		*THE CHINESE CHARACTER, LDN 673:** It might seem paradoxical but often it is the absence of light that makes an image interesting. About 600 million light-years from Earth, within the Aquila constellation, is Lynd’s Dark Nebula (LDN) 673. Some 7-light years in size, this fragmented dark molecular cloud complex contrasts against the colourful molecular clouds and stars of the Milky Way, which is reminiscent of a Chinese character.
NOVEMBER		CALIFORNIA NEBULA, NGC 1499: Located in the Perseus constellation, in the Orion arm of the Milky Way 1,000 light-years from Earth, NGC 1499 is a large emission nebula about 100 light-years long. First imaged in 2016, new improved data and processing now discloses the full grandeur of this object.
DECEMBER		ROSETTE NEBULA, NGC 2244: Approximately 5,000 light-years away, the vast cloud of gas and dust had been sculpted into the distinctive rose-like shape, while meanwhile a central star cluster has blown-away a large hollow within the molecular cloud. Revisiting this old favourite for the fourth time since 2015, here I have experimented with an unusual colour palette combination that has produced an exciting alternative image of the night sky’s rose.
*Footnote:* All images taken from Redhill, Surrey or at a dark sky site in New Mexico, USA shown by an asterisk*
*HAPPY NEW YEAR + CLEAR SKIES FOR 202*5