NGC 1990
image down-sampled 0.5x - click on image for full size image
Orion
click here for a film image from
the 1990s
Penrym, California
October/November 2009
FS-128 (ag, ST-4)
ST-2000XM LRGB 10 minute subs
The Western portion of NGC 1990 which surrounds the bright (1.74
magnitude) type BO belt star Epsilon Orionis, aka Alnilam (off screen at lower center). This
very faint reflection nebula glows in the intense output of Epsilon Orionis
while smaller reflection/emission nebula glow faintly just to the west of the
star (North is left and West is up in this image). There is a pencil thin
reflection from a camera internal surface extending from left top to right
bottom. Note the little "Witch Head" nebula in the above image.
Click
here for an
image of the area on the East side of Anilam (FS-128 - ST2000XM)
Click here for an
image of the area on the North side of Anilam (FCL-90 II @ f4.5 - ST10XME)
Click here for an
image of the area on the South side of Anilam (FCL-90 II @ f4.5 - ST10XME)
Click here for the
POSS1 image of NGC 1990, this image is a RGB image with the green channel
derived for the POSS1 images in red and blue.
The film image I acquired in the 1990's is
used in Wikipedia's entry on the star Alnilam. Every so often someone does
a 'study' of that image and concludes NGC 1990 does not exist. They fail
to consider the media used (hypered Kodak PPF color film at prime focus) and
compare it to enhanced CCD images most of which are over processed. Some of the
studies are quite interesting, especially the logic used (see
http://www.umich.edu/~lowbrows/reflections/jan-2009-public.pdf, a study
where I suspect the conclusion was written first).
See the following for an image that doesn't suffer for overprocessing.
http://blog.deepskycolors.com/archive/2010/10/22/orion-from-Head-to-Toes.html
