Der Orion-Molekülwolkenkomplex [OC]

3 hours of data with a Nikon Z6iia + vintage 180mm AIS @ f/4 tracked on the SA GTi. This is an extremely busy part of the sky sculpted by several UV-bright OB stars which carve out bubbles of ionized hydrogen, dense dust clouds that are actively forming new stars, and remnants of violent supernovae from several million years ago. All of these combined to form a beautiful, intricate mess of emission, reflection and dark nebulae. I’ve found myself staring at this image while processing it and I keep finding random new blobs that I never knew existed.

Some would argue a few protons per cubic meter is not that dusty… and that’s after making a puree of the entire universe