Sarajevo native Alan Ćatović captures stunning photograph of diffuse nebula in Orion

Alan Ćatović, founder of the Facebook group „Astro“ Sarajevo, captured the Orion Nebula (also known as Messier 42, M42 or NGC 1976), reports the Patria news agency.

It is a diffuse nebula located south in the constellation Orion. It is one of the brightest nebulae and is visible to the naked eye. It is located at a distance of about 1,350 light-years and is the closest region of star formation to us. Its diameter is estimated to be about 24 light-years, and its mass is about 2000 times greater than the mass of the Sun.

-       The image was taken in the area of Dejčići, on Mount Bjelašnica, on December 19, 2014. The preparation process for the shoot consisted of leveling the mount, and rough and fine polar alignment on the NEQ 6 mount using an illuminated reticle eyepiece and an additional smaller magnification telescope (finder). A Canon 500d DSLR was used for shooting, which was controlled by software from a Samsung tablet. Between the DSLR camera and the telescope with a focal length of 900mm (f/7.5), there was a 0.85x flat-field flattener which allows more incoming light and provides a wider field of view – explained Ćatović.

The shooting consisted of about ten shots of different exposures (30“, 1 min, 2 min, 3 min, 4 min) with similar ISO values and in RAW format, along with shooting so-called dark frames for image calibration and removal of noise in the photographs. The images were calibrated, normalized, and stacked in the Nebulosity software. Final processing (levels, curves, saturation, unsharp mask and noise filter) was done in Photoshop.

- I thank Zoran Knežević for the donated astronomical equipment and continuous support, Zoran Novak from AD Vega and Ivan Jevremović from AD Aristarh for professional assistance in the field of astrophotography. Also, I thank my long-time mentor in the field of classical photography, Ismet Smajiš. None of this would have been possible without my good friend Jasmin Poturović, who gave the initial impetus to this project. I also owe gratitude to my colleague Dr. Elvedin Kljuna for help in the field of electrical engineering, as well as Dejan Bešlija. Of course, I also have great support from my family, and I owe them my gratitude as well – added Ćatović.