Sharpless 278 - A mountain of dust in Orion

[Stefannebula]

Last year I took a widefield image of the entire Orion constellation and noticed an interesting little mountain-shaped nebula in between M42 and the Witch Head nebula. I looked into it and found it's cataloged as SH2-278. I couldn't find many deep exposures of it, so decided to give it a go, and definitely wasn't disappointed!

There's so much going on in this area, gorgeous blue puffs of reflection nebulae, the brown of the molecular cloud, pretty red emission highlights on the edge as well as some HH objects embedded within, and even a few little spiral galaxies in the background.

I wanted more exposure time, but La Nina had other plans, so this is just over 9 hours of LRGB in total from Bortle 2. Hope you all enjoy the view as much as I do!

Full res on Astrobin: https://www.astrobin.com/1aw55z/

🔭EQUIPMENT🔭
SharpStar HNT F2.8
ASI183MM-Pro
Chroma LRGB filters
NEQ6

📷EXPOSURE📷
TOTAL = 9.3h
L: 78x180s (gain: 50) -20°C
R: 18x300s (gain: 50) -10°C
G: 21x300s (gain: 50) -10°C
B: 26x300s (gain: 50) -10°C

[Craig_]

Nice result, and not a target I've seen much (or any?) of before!

[Stefannebula]

Thanks a lot Craig!

[EpickCrom]

Fantastic images Stefan :thumbsup:

[Dave882]

Great image and yes a really fascinating view. I love those pockets of reflection nebula. Thanks for sharing!!

[AstroViking]

That f2.8 scope of yours is a monster of a light catcher, and the image is fantastic.

Well done. Well done, indeed.

[strongmanmike]

What a great target Stefan and excellent result :thumbsup: I knew there were lots of odd puffs and lumps in that area of the sky but this particular puppy wasn't something I was particularly familiar with, so thanks for shooting it, very cool :thumbsup:

Mike

[Addos]

Lovely shot Stefan, well done!

[Mickoid]

Beautiful colours Stefan. Orion's own Rho Ophiuchi! Love the widefield showing us it's location in relation to Rigel and the Witch Head Nebula. Top stuff! :thumbsup::thumbsup:

[Ant0nio]

A lovely image Stefan & well done for bringing it into the light. Perhaps images of these more obscure DSO's could be sent to Stallarium to fill in the gaps, just a thought :shrug:.

Cheers,
Tony

[AdamJL]

Blown away!! This is something I'd expect to see from the ESA's catalogue or something.
Fantastic result of a really unknown-to-most target.