Experienced astrophotographers often recommend rookies start with Orion, and for good reason. The entire constellation is veiled in a vast network of interstellar gas and dust known has the Orion Complex, which contains in its denser regions some of the most eye-catching stellar nurseries visible from Earth. One such stellar nursery is M 42, the photogenic Orion Nebula: by far the brightest nebula in the northern hemisphere, visible to the naked eye even near a city. It can be found in the middle of the asterism Orion’s Sword, with its fuzzy appearance distinguishing it from the stars around it. It owes this fuzz to the nebulosity around the Trapezium Cluster, which scatters and reflects the star cluster’s light – mostly coming from the massive binary star 41 Ori C. This same star cluster causes most of the pink glow visible in photos (due to hydrogen atoms absorbing some energy from incoming light and re-emitting it at a specific wavelength of red) and it also helps to illuminate the dimmer parts of the nebula.

Captured using a Fujifilm X-A5 and a GSO 6" F/4 Newtonian mounted on a Celestron AVX, processed with Siril and GIMP. This image is a stack of 38x30s light frames taken at 1600 ISO. This was before I understood the importance of calibration frames, so none were used – I simply cropped out the worst of the dust motes and vignetting.