First Photo Session with the Belt and Sword Region of Orion

Got up early (4:30 am) and headed out to the observatory in the backyard to photograph the region around the Belt and Sword of the constellation Orion (due south at that time of the morning). This region is one of my favorites in the night sky! In it you can see the Great Orion Nebula, the "Running Man" nebula, the "Flame Nebula" and a hint of the "Horsehead Nebula".

I had a little trouble getting started (roll-off roof was stubborn, the camera connection to the computer was inconsistent) so I did not get as many images as I wanted to... but Orion will be with us through the winter so I will have many opportunities to do even better astrophotography of it.

Here is a stack of 44 images (approximately 25 secs each at f/5.6, zoom set at 70mm, ISO 1600, Canon t3i, DeepSkyStacker Live, Celestron 4SE mount. Total effective time of exposure: 17 minutes then post-processing with GIMP.