M42 – The Orion Nebula

M42 – The Orion Nebula (wide field)

I wanted to photograph the Orion Nebula ever since becoming interested in astrophotography almost 30 years ago (in the pre-digital era!), and this is my first image, taken from my yard in Victoria, BC in January of 2025. 

One can easily find this beautiful nebula even with a naked eye just below the Orion’s Belt. M42 is 25 light-years across, and it is one of the closest star nurseries to our Solar system. Massive young stars whip up strong stellar winds that compress the surrounding gas, creating turbulence and shock waves, which in turn create more stars.

The Orion Nebula is exceptionally colourful. The red hues are due to the radiation of the ionized hydrogen, and the blue and violet colours are the reflected radiation of the gigantic O-type stars at the core. There is even a greenish hue, which is very rare in deep space, due to a low-probability electron transition in the ionized oxygen. It’s called the “forbidden transition,” because it is notoriously difficult to reproduce in a lab, which lacks the high vacuum of space.

This light travelled for 1,300 years before reaching my camera. This is a 3.5-hr exposure at f/5.9, using a full-frame one-shot colour (OSC) camera and a dual narrowband filter.

M42 – The Orion Nebula
M42 – The Orion Nebula (closeup)

The Flowing Clue: La Source Unveiled – page 7, panels 1,2

“The Flowing Clue: La Source Unveiled” page 7, panels 1, 2

This is the ink of the first two panels of page 7 of my fluids comic book. I needed to establish a system for measuring the reference lengths in the painting, so I had to do some research about how this could be done. The model of “La Source” is actually a known person, so her anatomy is an obvious reference. Nothing is known about her height or other measurements, though, as Ariadne and Athena discuss in these panels.

The Flowing Clue: La Source Unveiled – page 6, panels 2 – 5

“The Flowing Clue: La Source Unveiled” page 6, panels 2 – 5.

Here are the inks of the rest of the 6th page of my fluids comic book. This is how I decided to show the scientific content. I used my own presentation style from the COVID times, when I taught fluid mechanics online by writing on the screen, overlaying formulae and schematics with images.

NGC 281 – The Pacman Nebula

NGC 281 – Pacman Nebula

This emission nebula in the Cassiopeia constellation resembles its namesake character from the classic video game. It also resembles a heart if viewed from a different angle. It is rather dim and diffuse while observed visually, but is quite neat and full of details when photographed using multiple guided exposures. A small open star cluster (IC 1590) ionizes the gas of the Pacman, which is criss-crossed by lines of dark dust. It also contains several Bok globules, which are isolated dark nebulae that consist of dense clouds of dust and gas. These clouds are in the process of condensing and will form new stars in the future.

This future star nursery is located in the Perseus Arm of our Milky Way galaxy. I captured its light in early October of 2024, after it travelled for 9,500 years to my yard in Victoria, BC. This image is an integration of forty 5-minute RGB exposures, taken through a 478 mm-long, f/5.9 telescope. 

The Flowing Clue: La Source Unveiled – page 5, panels 3 – 5

“The Flowing Clue: La Source Unveiled” page 5, panels 3 – 5

Here is the second half of page 5 of my fluids manga. Looking back at these inks, which I made a few weeks ago, I think that the characters became a bit too simplified at this point. There are good reasons for it from the comic book readability standpoint, but I probably enjoy drawing slightly more detailed illustrations. When I come back to these panels for colouring, I might play with rendering a bit more than I originally planned.

The Flowing Clue: La Source Unveiled – page 5, panels 1, 2

“The Flowing Clue: La Source Unveiled” page 5, panels 1, 2

Here are the inks of the first half of page 5 of my comic book. A key point that I learned from Victoria Ying is that the text takes priority in a comic book, and the images have to fit around it. I am sure that without this advice, I would have under-estimated how much space the speech bubbles take, even with a relatively small font size.

The Flowing Clue: La Source Unveiled – page 4, panels 1, 2

“The Flowing Clue: La Source Unveiled” page 4, panels 1, 2

These are the inks of the first two panels on the fourth page of my comic book. At the scripting stage, I had most fun around this point in the storyline. By this time, I already had a pretty good idea of what the characters would look like and how they would talk, but I didn’t yet get into the thick of the fluids and the math, which are the proverbial vegetables hidden in the smoothie of a detective story. So stay tuned for more updates – hopefully they will be somewhat educational, as well as entertaining.