The wider aspects of Orion's Belt and Dagger

 

Space in and around Orion's Belt and the emission, reflection and dark nebulae.
Astro-modded Canon 200d DSLR with a clip in Triband filter. Image Credit: Kurt Thrust 

" Here in Lowestoft, the weather continues to vary on an hourly basis. The night sky on the 15-16th started off clear and steady but as the night went on, images of the stars began to soften as a very light mist moved in from the North Sea. The above image was created from a stack of 60x1minute exposures captured early in the evening whilst the sky was ok and individual subs showed sharp stars. I have had Pip Stakkert increase the image scale of two areas of the above image showing the nebulosity in greater detail. I have also added an image taken over twelve months ago showing the whole of the constellation striding across the horizon.

There are three common types of Nebulosity observable in the night sky:

Emission Nebula - quite the most common gas in space is hydrogen which is comprised from one proton and one electron. When the gas is excited (gains energy from the light of a nearby star) the electron jumps to a higher level. At some future time the electron will return to a lower electron state and when it does so it emits a photon of light having a frequency associated with the size of the jump. Our cameras are like a fisherman's net but instead of catching fish they capture photons. Our astro-modded Canon 200d DSLR camera is very good at catching photons having a wavelength associated with Hydrogen alpha emissions (656 nano metres) . The glowing red you see in our images is Hydrogen alpha emission. The Universe is awash with this light. The eagle eyed amongst our readers will notice some blue-magenta glows in our images and some of this is associated with similar energy transitions in atoms of Oxygen.

Reflection Nebula - in star clusters and generally in and around stars space, is full of dust. Where there are very young and large stars the space nearby is irradiated with their bright ultra violet light. If nearby there is a cloud of dust the UV light is reflected by it and we see a glowing blue reflection nebula.

Dark Nebula  - When a cloud of dense dust sits between us and an emission nebula we see what appears to be a dark black hole in the sky. This is a dark nebula and a prime example is the Horsehead nebula which can be seen in the next image below.

The great Orion Molecular Cloud shown in our images is the brightest visible in the night sky. It is just visible to the naked eye in Orion's dagger which hangs from his Belt (the prominent three stars in a line). It shows well in binoculars but will look green rather than red primarily because your dark adapted eyes see green light better than red. Although the night sky has many areas of emission nebulosity, most require a sensitive camera to show them" - Kurt Thrust current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.

The emission Flame Nebula top left, reflection nebula
 around some of the brighter blue stars
  and the dark Horsehead Nebula.

The Running Man Nebula top primarily showing both
Emission and Reflection Nebulosity.
 The Great Orion Molecular Cloud showing all three types of nebulosity.

The Constellation Orion striding over the horizon and the Visitor Centre
 at Carlton Marshes, Lowestoft.

Winter Highlights with a fast 50mm lens

 

The Constellation Auriga the charioteer widefield.

                       

The Constellation Gemini the twins widefield.

                          

Part of the Constellation Gemini the twins featuring
the bright stars Castor and Pollux

The Constellation Orion the hunter.

Images credit: Pip Stakkert. Two Canon DSLRs were used one astro-modded and with an integral clip in Altair Astro Triband filter. Canon F1.4 and f=50mm fixed lens. All mounted on a Star Adventurer EQ mount. Stack of 2 minute exposures each image about 1 hour in total. Processed primarily using Affinity Photo2

"The winter sky is full of interesting astronomical features and awash with glowing red hydrogen gas and clouds of dark cold dust. The weather finally improved in Lowestoft and we enjoyed the benefit of two consecutive moonlight free and cloud free nights on the 9-10th and 10-11th of January 2024.

The above images were taken with two Canon DSLR cameras, a fast F1.4 f=50mm lens and an Altair Astro Triband filter. The cameras were mounted on a Star Adventurer equatorial mount which enabled exposures of 2 minutes in length which ensured stars were captured as points of light without any apparent trailing due to the Earth's rotation. The Earth spins about its north south axis 15 degrees every hour, which when you think about it is quite extraordinary!

 The eagle eyed of our readers will note the Flaming Star Nebula in the image of Auriga and a number of nebulae  in Orion including; Barnards Loop, the Great Orion Molecular Cloud, The Flame Nebula, the Running Man Nebula, the Horsehead Nebula and the Witch Head Nebula.

The Jodrell Plank Observatory is slowly recovering from the electrical outage caused by storm damage in the latter part of 2023. The LVST (the Lowestoft Very Small software defined radio telescope is still out of action awaiting reprogramming by Jolene McSquint Fleming, the Observatory instrumentation engineer. Sadly and just like the NASA Pioneer space craft, the the software used to originally programme the LVST is now antique and few but the very old are fluent in the language used. Jolene has messaged our sponsor George Roberts who is sufficiently ancient to be of some limited assistance". - Kurt Thrust current Director of the Jodrell Plank Observatory.