
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.

