APOD: Orion's Belt and Sword over Teide's Peak (2016 Mar 28)

[APOD Robot]

Orion's Belt and Sword over Teide's Peak

Explanation: The southern part of Orion, the famous constellation and mythical hunter, appears quite picturesque posing here over a famous volcano. Located in the Canary Islands off the northwest coast of Africa, the snow-peaked Teide is one of the largest volcanoes on Earth. Lights from a group planning to summit Teide before dawn are visible below the volcano's peak. In this composite of exposures taken from the same location one night last month, the three iconic belt stars of Orion are seen just above the peak, while the famous Orion Nebula and the rest of Orion's sword are visible beyond the volcano's left slope. Also visible in the long duration sky image are the Horsehead Nebula, seen as a dark indentation on the red emission nebula to the belt's left, and the Flame Nebula, evident just above and to the right of the Horsehead.

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[Boomer12k]

Awesome.... LOVE IT!!!!

Hi to my friend in the Canary Islands... though she might not see this...
:---[===] *

[Dcrooks]

Anyone have the specs on this image? Equipment, exposure time, etc?

[geckzilla]

Anyone have the specs on this image? Equipment, exposure time, etc?

Definitely not a single exposure! That's about all I know for sure.

[Asterhole]

I'd agree with Geckzilla - though it'd sure make for some thrilling naked-eye viewing if we could see the Orion nebula displayed in Earth's skies as such.

[starsurfer]

I'd like to mention that you can faintly see the NGC 1999 region below and to the left of the Orion Nebula.

[Wayne Warren]

It is strange that the image is inverted. The Belt star zeta Ori is really the southern and eastern star in the Belt, while delta Ori is the northwestern star. The constellation would be upside down in the southern hemisphere, but Tenerife is in the northern hemisphere.

[Ann]

It is strange that the image is inverted. The Belt star zeta Ori is really the southern and eastern star in the Belt, while delta Ori is the northwestern star. The constellation would be upside down in the southern hemisphere, but Tenerife is in the northern hemisphere.

The image doesn't look inverted to me. At this time of year, however, the entire Orion constellation is "keeling over" as seen from the northern hemisphere, so that the western part of the constellation is sinking down, like a sinking ship. The eastern part of the constellation is "jutting upwards".

Ann

[BMAONE23]

What may throw the appearance of Orion off to an observer of this image is the fact that Orion is setting in the west in this image rather than rising in the east. If Orion were rising then the Horsehead and Orion nebulae would be incorrectly oriented given which direction would be north.
If Orion were rising, North would be to the Left but since Orion is setting, North is to the right

[sallyseaver]

Would someone be willing to label the image?
I'd like to make sure of where each named object is.

Thanks in advance.

[Vava]

"Definitely not a single exposure!"
Hi, I'm French amateur astronomer.
We can definitely send anything to Apod finally Baroche is a famous French astronomer who said it and I agree .
Good comments all!

[geckzilla]

"Definitely not a single exposure!"
Hi, I'm French amateur astronomer.
We can definitely send anything to Apod finally Baroche is a famous French astronomer who said it and I agree .
Good comments all!

You know, it's always been like this. The only reason a picture makes it on APOD is because an editor likes it. There aren't any rules other than the original creator has to give them permission to do so. Everyone has just been extra sensitive since the ISS/Saturn incident.

[bobFranke]

Here is an a annotated image created by astrometry.net
http://nova.astrometry.net/annotated_full/1492540

cheers,
Bob

[Ann]

Here is an a annotated image created by astrometry.net
http://nova.astrometry.net/annotated_full/1492540

cheers,
Bob

Thanks, Bob!

Of course Mintaka is Delta Orionis, Alnilam, the middle star of Orion's Belt, is Epsilon Orionis, and Alnitak, the belt star near the Horsehead nebula, is Zeta Orionis. There is some writing near Alnilam in the annotated version that you linked to that can't be read.

Ann

[Cesar]

Tecnical Aspects:

It was shooted at same location with the same equipment, focal (200mm canon photolens), mount (sky adventurer), camera (Canon 6D modded), declination (azimuthal 261°), at the same night..

The only diferrence is in the right ascension RA during orion was falling down to the peak, because first in time, we began with orion zone about at 60º of altitude AZ. When foreground (Teide's peak) and background (orion's zone) was at 11° of altitude from our location, we stop the sky adventurer mount without touching anything, and took the Teide's peak frames.. Before we had calculated the correct horizontal camera's angle to take the foreground and add to final composite.. "A little bit away from more artificial composites" saids to me Rogelio Bernal somedays ago..

And that was our idea from some years ago.. Get the mayor realistic composite posible in the same frame at the same night at the same location.. A deep sky object with a beautifull landscape. And here is the difficulty.. Doing it at 200mm implies that we had to calculate with a celestial planetarium and a photographic positioning program the exact point from where we'd take the photo, because when we stop the celestial movement, the deep sky area (Orion zone) has to stay just above the ground, in this case, Teide's peak on Tenerife island.

Curiosities of this frame are the lights from teide's refuge and from a group of people who want to summits pike before dawn at 04:30 am..

At 200mm going about more than 100 meters north or south for our location we would have left teide out of plane..

East side of Teide's peak at Teide's National Park.. Canary Island.. Spain.. 02/13/2016 between 00:30 and 04:30 am..

Background frames.. Orion's belt and sword (HDR combo 20x10s, 20x40s, 20x160s)..

Foreground frames.. East side of Teide's peak (10x160s without sidereal rate)..

A Beautiful Astrolandscape..

[geckzilla]

Thanks for giving us the technical rundown of your process, Cesar. It is much appreciated.

[polo0258]

i think this apod is no good!
it was'nt a single exposure and it'snt true!!
it a assembly!
assembly picture is forbidden ,it is no true!!!
i agree with vava and baroche!!

[geckzilla]

i think this apod is no good!
it was'nt a single exposure and it'snt true!!
it a assembly!
assembly picture is forbidden ,it is no true!!!
i agree with vava and baroche!!

This has literally been going on for well over a decade and only now you've decided that it's no good for you. Alright, then.

[neufer]

.
What is a "huntsman" doing carrying a sword

A club, a spear, a knife, a bow & arrow... fine ...but a sword

[Fred the Cat]

.
What is a "huntsman" doing carrying a sword

A club, a spear, a knife, a bow & arrow... fine ...but a sword

I suspect it has something to do with symbolism. Men have been symbolized over and over until it's thought it's all we think about. Imagine that.

[BMAONE23]

Geck,
Out of curiosity and considering polo0258's comment
How many of the Fabulous APOD's have been Single Exposure Images and how many have been Multiple Mosaic or Stacked?
My guess would be that there are relatively few APOD's that are Single Images

[Chris Peterson]

Geck,
Out of curiosity and considering polo0258's comment
How many of the Fabulous APOD's have been Single Exposure Images and how many have been Multiple Mosaic or Stacked?
My guess would be that there are relatively few APOD's that are Single Images

That's a safe bet. It's nearly impossible to create a deep sky image in a single shot, and I think most APODs are in that category. And the dynamic range of landscape astronomy is typically too wide for a single image to suffice.

[geckzilla]

What Chris said. Photoshop is not the enemy, here. Ignorance and just plain bad manners are at work.

[sallyseaver]

Bob,
Thank you for the annotated image. It helped to satisfy my curiosity.

[neufer]

.
What is a "huntsman" doing carrying a sword

A club, a spear, a knife, a bow & arrow... fine ...but a sword

I suspect it has something to do with symbolism.

• Like a kerchief :

---

<<Niccolò Cacciatore (26 January 1770 – 28 January 1841) was an Italian astronomer born at Casteltermini, in Sicily. While studying mathematics and physics in Palermo, Cacciatore ("Hunter" in Italian) became acquainted with Giuseppe Piazzi, head of the Palermo Astronomical Observatory, and became a graduate student assistant at the observatory in 1798. Two years later (just before Piazzi discovered Ceres) Cacciatore was formally put on staff. Cacciatore succeeded Piazzi as director of the Palermo Observatory in 1817. As such, his most notable observation was the discovery of globular cluster NGC 6541 on 19 March 1826. The observatory was attacked [Moe Szyslak: Let's go burn down the observatory, so this'll never happen again!], and Cacciatore was imprisoned, during the Sicilian Revolution of 1820, but he survived to restore the facility and lead it for two more decades.

Cacciatore helped Piazzi compile the second edition of the Palermo Star Catalogue (1814). He did the bulk of the work, in fact heading the project starting in 1807. He also published works on the comets of 1807 and 1819. When the Palermo Catalogue was published in 1814, the unfamiliar names Sualocin and Rotanev were attached to a pair of visually unremarkable 4th magnitude stars: Alpha and Beta Delphini. Eventually the Reverend Thomas William Webb, a British astronomer, puzzled out the explanation. Cacciatore's name, Nicholas Hunter in English translation, would be Latinized to Nicolaus Venator. Reversing the letters of this construction produces the two star names. They have endured, the result of Cacciatore's little practical joke of naming the two stars after himself. How Webb arrived at this explanation 45 years after the publication of the catalogue is still a mystery.>>