M78

Image Description and Details :

Messier 78 is the other (IMHO) "great" nebula in Orion, sitting just above Orions' belt. M87 and its companion nebulae NGC2064, NGC2967, and NGC2071 are reflection nebulae in the Orion B molecular cloud. Reflection nebulae are where surrounding gas and dust is illuminated by stars.
They are usually blue in color, and for the same reasons our home world skies are blue.
The curvilinear shapes are carved out by the stellar wind of some very energetic stars.

M78 is the bright area in the center of the image, to the right of this there is a swirl of dust that looks just like the eye-wall of a hurricane, and the side lighting gives some 3-D information about the structure.
Lower to the left there is a dark nebula with tendrils and orange/red light peeping through, this is a stellar birthplace and home to 17 Herbig-Haro objects (energetic jets from new born stars)
I shot this image over 6 nights from the New Mexico desert, M78 still being a late riser so this image was shot at low elevation in the early hours of the morning. This is a full-frame image with minimal cropping at 2560mm focal length @ f7.

Tech stuff:
Scope : Planewave CDK14
Mount : Planewave L-350
Camera : ZWO ASI 6200 MM Pro ZWO filter wheel Astronomik filters
24 x 10 min Red
20 x10 min Green
18 x10 min Blue
All unguided. Darks no flats.
Shot as Bin 1 downsampled to Bin 2x2 in Pixinsight

Copyright: Richard Whitehead 2021