After having endured a certain amount of leg-pulling at the trustees meeting last night concerning widow-sills and double glazing, lo and behold, Orion was in view from the aforementioned window-sill after I got home.

This month’s Deep Sky Tour in the Sky at Night mag. was all about objects in Orion’s sword, so despite a prominent moon, I acquired some images.

Starting with NGC1981, the “crocodile” cluster and NGC 1977

NGC 1977 is in fact the “Running man” nebula, so the next image was a longer exposure and processed to bring out the nebulosity:

Then on to NGC 1980, together with M42, just to orient yourselves.

Again this was then processed to bring out more of M42’s nebulosity:

The next 2 images are NGC 1980 without the focal reducer to bring out the rather nice double Struve 747

Although I didn’t try to image M42 and M43, here is a reprocessed one from last winter with the same set-up to complete the “set”.

Curiously, in the same issue of the magazine there is an article about the best winter clothing for observing – it might be interesting to note that I was in my pyjamas during all this – – – !

(BUT I am NOT going to attempt to demonstrate this at the next Science Day!)