This is part of the huge Orion molecular cloud of dust and gas which acts as a stellar nursery.Theres no getting away from the fact that most of the stars in this image are brown! – due to overlying dust.
In the centre of the image, two young B-class stars (HD 38563A and HD 38563B) are reflected in the surrounding gas with an overlying dark arch.
Towards upper left is another reflection nebula, NGC 2071.
NGC 2064 and NGC 2067 are the two bright zones above the dark arch.
Towards the lower right, some early stars are just managing to penetrate the darkness as red or yellow splotches. One of these splotches (triangular – just to right of two small stars) brightened considerably in 2004 – its thought a young star ignited at that time – the region is called McNeil’s nebula after the amateur who noticed it.
Infra-red imaging shows about 45 new stars in the early phases of development in this cloud (T-tauri stars or Herbig-Haro objects which are outflow jets from young forming stars).
Image acquired remotely from the Mayhill observatory in New Mexico.
16 x 5 minute exposures. Dithered and drizzled.
Takahashi 150mm refractor
SBIG ST-4000XCM One Shot Color CCD camera
Mount: Paramount GTS
Field of view 49 x 49 arcminutes
Post-processing in PixInsight and Photoshop CC.