Flame Nebula

Flame Nebula.jpg

You could see it previous nights' images so I had to select it for a target tonight.  Main emphasis here is on what appears to be a giant flame in the sky. Of course it is not alight. It is part of the Orion Giant Molecular Cloud region and is an emission nebula. Light from Alnitak is energising the atoms within and causing the electron to become exited. Most of the appearance actually comes when these electrons re-combine with molecular hydrogen. There is a big dust lane across the front.

I have doctored this picture a little by reducing the size of the bright star Alnitak. This is a common procedure in astro photographs where a subject would otherwise saturate the image. The smaller star is from a shorter duration frame that is patched in using graphical editing software..

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This page contains a single entry by John published on December 20, 2009 5:00 PM.

New Telescope was the previous entry in this blog.

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