Orion constellation glows red in gorgeous deep space photo
Miguel Claro is a professional photographer, author and science communicator based in Lisbon, Portugal, who creates spectacular images of the night sky. As a European Southern Observatory Photo Ambassador and member of The World At Night and the official astrophotographer of the Dark Sky Alqueva Reserve, he specializes in astronomical "Skyscapes" that connect both Earth and the night sky.
This deep view of the Orion Constellation glows in reddish hues thanks to a filtered view of hydrogen alpha emission, a type of light emitted by hydrogen atoms.
The large, intricate semi-circle around the three stars that make up Orion's belt is known as Barnard's Loop (Sh2-276), a nebula about 1,600 light-years away that itself spans some 300 light-years across. Barnard's Loop is part of the even bigger Orion molecular cloud complex, made up of dust, hydrogen and helium, and is the birthplace of stars.
I always wanted to make an image like this one that shows all the beautiful reddish hydrogen that surrounds one of the most spectacular and colorful regions of the entire night sky as seen from Earth. This cloud contains known wonders like M42, Horse Head, LDN 1622, the large Lambda Orionis Ring and the bluish (OIII) Witch Head Nebula, close to Rigel star.
I had my set up for this shot (Samyang 35mm f1.8 with Poseidon C Pro) available and prepared for two months before Orion cooperated. This image was a bit challenging to capture, due to uncooperative weather and the fact that the Orion constellation was beginning to set early along the western horizon.
I only had 40 minutes available for each clear night between February and March 2025 as seen from the Dark Sky Alqueva Reserve in Portugal, so collecting the seven hours of data in total for this image took many nights. Had I taken it in the beginning of winter, I could have taken it in one night. I hope you enjoy the result.
I hope you enjoy it as much as I do, and if you want to support my work as an independent artist, you can buy one of my images as a print and a piece of art or a wall decor for your sweet home! Explore the size options and different types available on my Print gallery. Meanwhile, you can sign-up my newsletter to get early access of future releases.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Yahoo
Met urged to scrap Carnival facial recognition plan
Civil liberty and anti-racism groups have called on the Metropolitan Police to drop plans to use live facial recognition (LFR) technology at this year's Notting Hill Carnival. In a letter to Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, 11 organisations described LFR as "a mass surveillance tool that treats all Carnival-goers as potential suspects and has no place at one of London's biggest cultural celebrations". They said the decision to reintroduce the technology at Carnival was "deeply disappointing" and argued it could be "less accurate for women and people of colour". The Met Police says LFR is accurate and balanced across ethnicity and gender, and insists it will help keep people safe. The groups - which include Liberty, Big Brother Watch and the Runnymede Trust - highlighted an ongoing judicial review brought by Shaun Thompson, a black Londoner who says he was wrongly identified by the system and detained. The letter states: "There is no clear legal basis for your force's use of LFR. No law mentions facial recognition technology and Parliament has never considered or scrutinised its use. "Notting Hill Carnival is an event that specifically celebrates the British African Caribbean community, yet the [Metropolitan Police] is choosing to use a technology with a well-documented history of inaccurate outcomes and racial bias." The letter also raised concerns over a 2023 National Physical Laboratory study, which found the NeoFace system used by the Met was less accurate for women and people of colour depending on the algorithm that has been set. The study's authors found the system could show bias at lower thresholds, though at the higher settings the Met says it uses, performance was found to be equitable across ethnicity and gender. These thresholds are confidence levels the system uses to decide a match - lower ones flag more people but risk more mistakes and bias, while higher ones are stricter and more balanced. Campaigners said there was no legal obligation for the force to avoid the lower thresholds, and argued policing resources would be better spent on safety measures at the carnival. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Matt Ward, who is leading this year's policing operation at the carnival, said LFR had led to more than 1,000 arrests since the start of 2024 and that independent testing showed the system was "accurate and balanced with regard to ethnicity and gender" at the thresholds used by the Met. Notting Hill Carnival takes place next weekend and has previously attracted up to two million people. It has come under increased scrutiny after two people were murdered at last year's event. Facial recognition tech for Notting Hill Carnival 'Cancelling Carnival won't stop knife crime' 'City Hall should run Notting Hill Carnival' Mr Ward said the force had received the letter and would respond in due course. "Carnival's growing popularity and size creates unique challenges. Around 7,000 officers and staff will be deployed each day," he said. "Their priority is to keep people safe, including preventing serious violence, such as knife crime and violence against women and girls. "It is right that we make the best use of available technology to support officers to do their job more effectively." Mr Ward said the LFR cameras will be used on the approach to and from Carnival and not within the event boundaries. He said they will "help officers identify and intercept those who pose a public safety risk before they get to the crowded streets". BBC News has contacted the carnival's organisers for comment. Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Sounds and follow BBC London on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to Related internet links Liberty Human Rights Metropolitan Police
Wall Street Journal
9 hours ago
- Wall Street Journal
Pump the Brakes on E-Bikes
I applaud the efforts in New York City to adopt an e-bike speed limit of 15 miles per hour, paralleling safety actions abroad ('New York Has a New E-Bike Speed Limit—and Can't Enforce It,' Page One, Aug. 8). Scientific literature from Europe, Asia and the Middle East documents the severe neurosurgical, orthopedic, maxillofacial and other traumatic injuries associated with the higher rate of speed for e-bikes compared to traditional pedal bicycles. The U.S. should learn from this experience and spare the public repeated tragedies. New York can continue to lead the way by implementing new requirements for licensure and registration for those e-bikes that travel at higher speeds more closely resembling mopeds and motorcycles. This will enable law enforcement to identify these vehicles in traffic flow and restrict their use to the roadway instead of bike lanes and sidewalks, where they are more likely to collide with pedestrians in densely populated areas.
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Yahoo
Giant 'X' appears over Chile as 2 celestial beams of light cross
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. QUICK FACTS What it is: The luminous band of the Milky Way and the faint glow of zodiacal light Where it is: Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, Chile When it was shared: Aug. 6, 2025 This stunning image from astrophotographer Petr Horálek captures two of the night sky's most glorious sights in one — the glowing heart of the Milky Way and the elusive "zodiacal light." Despite appearing alongside one another, these two streaks of light could not be more different in origin and composition. Astronomers have constructed some of humanity's best telescopes in the Southern Hemisphere to better see the bright core of the Milky Way — dense with stars and nebulae. That core passes through constellations including Scorpius, Sagittarius and Ophiuchus, which are higher in the sky the farther south they're viewed from. This image was taken at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), located at an altitude of 7,200 feet (2,200 meters) in the Chilean Andes within the southern Atacama Desert. At this height, above the densest and warmest part of Earth's atmosphere, incredibly clear and dark skies are the norm, enabling observers to see not only the bright band of the Milky Way but something less obvious that resides in the solar system — zodiacal light. The biggest visible solar system phenomenon in the night sky, zodiacal light is a faint, diffuse glow in the night sky that casual observers often miss. It consists of sunlight reflecting off dust in our cosmic neighborhood, possibly from passing asteroids and comets or from the leftovers of planet formation. In 2020, a paper also claimed that zodiacal light may be primarily made of dust blown off Mars. Either way, the glow of the solar system is an arresting sight, but hard to see. MORE SPACE PHOTOS —James Webb telescope captures one of the deepest-ever views of the universe —NASA unveils 9 stunning snapshots of the cosmos in X-ray vision —'Fighting dragons' light up little-known constellation in the Southern sky Zodiacal light is at its brightest around the equinoxes and is visible along the ecliptic — the apparent path the sun takes through the sky — as a triangular beam of light on the horizon a few hours before sunrise or after sunset. That timing has led to it being called either the "false dawn" or "false dusk," though its name comes from the fact that it's visible over the 13 constellations that make up the zodiac. Horálek's spectacular image was taken in 2022 when he was an audiovisual ambassador for NOIRLab, which operates CTIO. In the photo, from left to right, are the U.S. Naval Observatory Deep South Telescope, the DIMM1 Seeing Monitor, the Chilean Automatic Supernova Search dome, the UBC Southern Observatory and the Planetary Defense 1.0-meter Telescope. Solve the daily Crossword
