For all you Northern Hemisphere folk, here’s how Orion’s “belt” & “sword” look to us negative-latitude people. Taken back in October of 2015, this shot has the stars of what we call “The Saucepan” highlighted with starbursts to show you how Orion appears when it’s rising during our warmer months here in the Southern Hemisphere. Orion’s sword is the handle of the saucepan, with the base of the saucepan being made up of the stars of Orion’s belt.
In the handle (sword) you can see the lovely pinkish hues of M42, the Orion Nebula. Earlier this week I posted a photo of the same nebula shot with a 400mm lens. Tonight’s pic shows it as seen with a 50mm lens, but cropped in tightly from the original shot.
For the tech-minded, this is a stacked image, made up from 19 light frames and 5 darks, using DeepSkyStacker. Shot with Canon EOS 6D, Canon EFII 50mm STM lens @ f/2.8, 6.0 seconds @ ISO 5000.