This is M78 in the Orion constellation. This is a great and mysterious target for winter, and this is the first time I have imagined it! The result above was created from 7.6 hours of total exposure time; each photograph was six minutes long. I took it with an RGB filter and with my 130mm Celestron telescope on my equatorial mount, the CEM26 from Ioptron.

M78 is 1600 light years away, so what you see above is history from 1,600 years ago.

This is a reflection nebula.

What do you think of the image? I love to hear your thoughts, so get in contact.

Do you see a problem in the image?

Clue: the round donut area of darkness on the upper right of the picture. Dust in my optics is the cause of this. I will try to correct it with flat frames. More on that next time and the results I get.

If you want to get into or improve your astrophotography, then I wrote this for you.

How expensive is astrophotography?

My answer will help you.

Check it out now.

That's all for this week, stargazers!

Be back soon.

Clear skies to you all!

Karl Perera