Behold: one of the best known and most recognisable constellations in the night sky: Orion. But shown in considerably more detail than the human eye – or any one telescope – can detect. To wit:

This is a more full Orion than you can see — an Orion only revealed with long exposure digital camera imaging and post-processing. Here the coolred giantBetelgeuse takes on a strong orange tint as the brightest star at the lower left. Orion’s hot blue stars are numerous, with supergiantRigel balancing Betelgeuse on the upper right, and Bellatrix at the upper left. Lined up in Orion’s belt are three stars all about1,500 light-years away, born from the constellation’s well-studied interstellar clouds. To the right of Orion’s belt is a bright but fuzzy patch that might also look familiar — the stellar nursery known as Orion’s Nebula. Finally, just barely visible to the unaided eye but quite striking here is Barnard’s Loop — a huge gaseous emission nebula surrounding Orion’s Belt and Nebula discovered over 100 years ago by the pioneering Orion photographer E. E. Barnard.

Full size image here.

(Image: John Gleason & Rogelio Bernal Andreo)

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