Orion

The Grandeur of Orion Below is a photograph of Bait Saih al Maleh taken early one evening in December. The constellation Orion (the Hunter) is rising behind it. Look towards the East on a winter evening and you should be able to recognise it. By midnight it should be overhead. It rises and sets, just like the sun. It is one of the first constellations that any beginner in astronomy learns to recognise. The photo was a bit of a challenge; how to show the stars and not over-expose the building. The stars were given sufficient exposure (30 secs, 28mm lens at f2.8, camera on ordinary photo tripod) by holding and jiggling a black-covered book in front of the camera to block out the building. At the end of the exposure the book was removed for about a second to record the building. All photos below were taken on ISO 800 Fuji colour print film. For long exposures, because of reciprocity failure, it is actually faster than Kodacolor Gold 1000 (something to note if you want to try out this type of photography). Bait Saih al Maleh

Next below is a close-up of Orion, 60 secs exposure, 50mm lens at f2.8, camera mounted piggy-back on a telescope tracking in alt azimuth mode, to better "freeze" the drift of the stars. Orion is supposed to be a hunter, here with his head towards the left-top corner (the small cluster of 3 stars), belt made of 3 stars in a straight line in the middle (almost vertical line in the picture below, sword made up of the 3 stars that are at about 45 degrees and then legs below.

Sky map of Orion follows below, note that the map shows Orion standing up (i.e. rotated compared to the photo above). It is interesting that the formal astronomical names of the brightest stars are Arabic from centuries ago (perhaps it's all those Ramadhan nights in the desert?). The imagination has wavered over the centuries and while Rigel (=leg in Arabic) is still a leg in modern sketches, Saiph (sword in Arabic. Not sure whether it refers to Saif Hinai or Saif al Harthy!) is often taken as the other leg in Western sketches. Some of the other names are readily identifiable with modern Arabic (Alnitak, Mintaka, Betelgeuse=Beit al Ghuss?) but what is Alnilam or Bellatrix?! Would be most interesting to see a modern Arabic star atlas, if anyone out there has one... Map of Orion

It is interesting that many people, like myself, do not really see the colours of stars, they all seem bright yellow, but to prove that they are coloured, strongly, the photo below was taken for a minute with the lens set at infinity, then defocused for 30 seconds. The colours of Betelgeuse and Rigel are now obvious. Betelgeuse is a red giant star. If we could see infrared it would be the brightest star in the sky. Rigel is a much hotter, younger star, blue hot. Let us now zero in on the 3 "stars" that constitute the modern "sword" of Orion. In particular note the fuzzy region of M42 and M43.

Below is a close-up of this region. It is the magnificent Orion Nebula. In fact we note that the 3 stars are not 3 at all, more like 3 clusters. The longer the photo exposure, the more stars we see. This photo was taken using an 8" SCT at f/6.3 for one minute. The telescope was unguided but was tracking in alt-azimuth mode. The 3 "stars" from the above photo (Orion's sword) are rotated to vertical (as in the map) and span the picture below. The nebula is a gas cloud 1500 light years from us (some 14000 trillion kilometers!) but still just next door in astronomical terms. It is still in our galaxy (the Milky Way), just a tiny fraction of the diameter of our galaxy away from us, and stars are still being formed by the gas condensing under gravitational pull. The nebula itself is trillions of km across and is illuminated by the stars in the bright, central region. Hopefully the next time you look up and recognise Orion, you will recall a bit of what you see here. It's all right there before your eyes! Orion Nebula

God's work is truly humbling! Season's Greetings! ;-) Samir

Page Owned and Constructed by Samir Kharusi, OD. Last Update: 22nd December 1998.