Orange Betelgeuse shines brightly in the upper left, and Rigel is the bright star on the lower right.  Barnard's Loop, the half-circle red band on the left, is easily visible in this deep exposure.  Inside the loop, near the leftmost belt star, the Horsehead and Flame Nebula area is visible.  M42, the great nebula in Orion, is below that and overexposed, something to work on someday ;-)  The large circular red area  on top is Sh2-264.  This is a major star-forming area, with the red color coming from glowing clouds of hydrogen gas.  Winter Milky Way Area: See this image combined together with other areas.   Other Pictures from the Davis Mountains are here

Photo Details (above): 16 x 4 minutes = 64 minutes total exposure time.  3/15/2007 from the Davis Mountains, TX, USA. Canon EOS 20Da (unmodified), with Nikon 28mm f2.8 AIS lens operating at f4, Losmandy G-11 mount.  My current image processing workflow is here.

Horsehead and Orion Nebula Area - 135mm

Part of the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex from the Texas Hill Country back in 2017, reprocessed in 2021. This star forming region spreads across hundreds of light-years and covers much of the Orion constellation itself. The "Witch Head Nebula" is nicely shown here on the upper left.  It's (Witch Head) comprised of dust-reflected light from the blue star, Rigel, on the right. This is 65 minutes total exposure via a Nikon D810a camera & Zeiss 135mm camera lens.

Witch Head and M42 Reprocessed

Same base data as previous image but reprocessed to accentuate the blue

Annotated Area

Close-ups of some great areas:

New Feb 2011:  Horsehead Nebula Portrait

Horsehead and Flame Nebula	Orion Nebula
Perseus Wide Field	Cygnus Area Wide Angle Shots

Winter Milky Way Area: This image stitched together with other areas.

Orion Area, wide angle (film)

Check out the old film image from 2000!.  Notes: Orion occupies the bottom middle area of this picture.  The three belt stars point up and to the right.  Jupiter is the very bright object on the upper middle/right.  The California Nebula is on the extreme upper right.  Note the big red loop (Barnard's Loop) around Orion.  The Milky Way runs to the left of Orion up to the top center area of the picture. 

My Messier Pictures