by Paulo Lobao
Maybe the popular DSO of all. Easily visible at naked eye this diffuse nebula is situated south of Orion's Belt. This nebula contains a open cluster known as the Trapezium located at the "centerĀ“s" core. The asterism of its primary four stars are easily resolved in this picture. The Running Man Nebula is visible too in this photo at the "left" of M42.
I acquired the data for this at Muxagata, Portugal (MPC J15) for a total of 109 minutes with a DSLR. Final processing as a HDR photo.
Photo data:
Telescope: Takahashi FS102NSV @ f/6.2
Mount: ATLAS EQmod
Camera: Canon 40D modified
Guiding: Takahashi FS60C + QHY5
No filters
Total exposure time: about 109 min at ISO800 (9x15s, 9x30s, 9x60s, 9x120s, 9x240s, 5x480s)