Photo of the Week for January 11, 2019
The famed Orion Nebula, M42 (and its companion M43), has been imaged countless times. M42 is one of the most popular deep-sky targets for obvious reasons: it’s big, it’s bright and it’s beautiful.
Each winter we receive a new crop of impressive photos, but in spite of that, no two are exactly alike. Different equipment yields different results, but much of a shot’s final appearance is determined in the processing stage. What happens there reflects the tastes and intentions of the imager. Some try to show every last wispy detail in the nebula, while others aim for something more closely resembling the telescopic view. Either approach can yield breathtaking results.
Yanick Bouchard recorded this portrait of M42 from the light-polluted environs of Mirabel, Quebec. He used a Celestron EdgeHD 925, 9¼-inch telescope with HyperStar (for a focal ratio of f/2.3) to capture a total of 198 minutes exposure with a ZWO ASI1600MC cooled colour CMOS camera.
