S. M. Garver - Orion Constellation

Orion Constellation - January 5, 2019
Images were taken in Oak Hill, Florida on the night of a new moon. The night of a new moon is one of the darkest nights because the moon rises and sets completely during daylight hours. In addition, Oak Hill is on the coast relatively far from areas with an excess of artificial light sources (known as light pollution) which makes for great celestial orb viewing when skies are clear.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

There were probably hundreds of stars visible to the naked eye that night. However, Orion is the only constellation I can easily and readily identify, and was low enough to the horizon I could set my tripod to capture it.

I managed to capture the bulk of the constellation (missing the arrow overhead and the shield to the west). I added the blue lines to show the arms, legs, belt, and sword (hanging from the belt) of the constellation. All star names are below the star. (The labeled star in the upper right is from the Eridanus constellation, but the rest are part of Orion.)
[Seventeen stars are identified. Orion is shown leaning back so a star in the head is in the upper left while the feet are at the right and lower right sides of the image. The blue lines create basically an H shape that is almost lying on its side and has a short line sticking out to the right of the crossbar (which is Orion's belt). ]

While focusing on individual stars, I wasn't always able to tell in the camera viewer that I didn't have the entire constellation in the frame which is why the one arm star is missing from this image. However, I managed to capture Arneb instead.
[Three of the arm leg stars are identified as is Arneb from the Lepus constellation in the lower right of the image at the feet end of the constellation. Blue lines create the same leaning H shape as the prior image. ]

This is a zoomed in view of Orion's belt, which was vertical in the prior images, but is horizontal in this one. I created this comparison to show just how many of the stars I never thought my camera could capture it actually did capture. My image is on the bottom and a partial section of an image I found online is on the top. I circled the matching stars to make it a bit easier to notice the white specks in my image.
[Two images are spliced together with one above the other. Blue lines are between the three brightest stars on both images. There are ten red circles around white dots in both the upper and lower images. The upper image has many additional white dots visible. In addition, the main stars of the upper image are much larger in diameter. ]

This is a zoomed in view of Orion's sword as it hangs downward from the belt. If you scroll back to the first image, you'll see I only listed three stars for the sword, but a zoomed view indicates there are many, many stars in the sword area. My image is on the left and a partial section of an image I found online (different image than the one in the prior comparison) is on the right. I circled the matching stars to make it a bit easier to notice the white specks in my image. I assumed some of the small dots on my image were just artifacts of the camera sensor, but once I saw the matching three dots arc in the upper portion of this image, I realized I captured more stars than I thought I had.

I was amazed to see so many stars that night and even more amazed I owned a camera that could capture so many of them. This was my first attempt doing this, so I'm sure I'll create better images on future outings.

Return to top of page.

Return to sky photos index.