This is just part of the fascinating region of space in the constellation of Orion. I’ve stretched the image just enough to hint at the surrounding dust but in the forefront we have amazing reflection, emission and dark nebula all illuminated by the hot stars in the region. The bright star on the left in this image is Alnitak, the left-most star of Orion’s belt. The famous horse head is a dark region of dust that obscures the red Ha emission-nebula behind it.
This image was taken with my Touptek IMX533C camera and is the result of just 200 minutes of integration time. I have processed to keep the colours naturalistic. Imaged with my 70mm APO refractor, the only filter was a 2″ UV/IR. The stars in this area are notoriously bright and tricky to process, I think I did ok.
Imaged on 19/02/2025