M42, The Orion Nebula
This famous nebula is 1500 light years away and is easily found in the sword of Orion the Hunter. On a clear, dark night it can be seen as a fuzzy area with the unaided eye. Through a telescope you can see the nebula's greenish-white gases glowing faintly and beautifully. The Hubble Space Telescope has seen these gases as a stellar nursery where new stars are being formed. Four stars called the Trapezium are the big brothers to these baby stars and shed light on the middle area of the nebula. They are a little smudged together in the top picture but through a telescope they are a crystal sugar coating on the nebula. This spot in the sky is probably the most observed area ever and rightfully so. It is well worth your bundled up time on a cold winter's night.
This picture is a 25 minute exposure on Fuji Super G 800 taken from my light polluted back yard. M42 is a perfect object for astrophotography because it surrounded by easy to find guide stars and it is easy to see through a camera's view finder.
This image is my beginning try at digital stacking. To create it I subracted a short exposure image from a long exposure image and added the result to another long exposure image. The software I used was Micrografx Picture Publisher, which works as good as Photoshop for me. Thanks to my friend Scott for allowing me to use one of his shots. Here are the original images with two attempts at stacking them.
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