| Orion Nebula, Hydrogen alpha filter. This is a single 15 second image, taken in the early hours of 11th December 2005. You can clearly see the 4 central, hot stars that light up the Hydrogen gas cloud. These are given the appropriate name of the Trapezium, and they are young, hot stars spewing out UV radiation. This ionizes & heats the surrounding hydrogen making the nebula easily visible. The faint horizontal & vertical lines are probably electrical interference. The thick vertical line to the right is a 'dead column' on the ccd chip. probably due a previous cosmic ray hit damaging a small region near the bottom right of the image. All of these can be removed in the image reduction process. (#4/25, ) |
