Lambda Orionis Ring (Sh2-264)

[gorann]

Sh2-264, aka The Angelfish Nebula, aka the Lambda Orionis Ring, is a molecular cloud and Ha region, which can be seen in the northern region of the Orion molecular cloud complex (OMCC). According to Wiki the OMCC is one of the best-known star formation regions and the closest sector of the Milky Way to our Solar System where high-mass stars are born. The nebula is named after its main star, λ Orionis, a blue giant responsible for the ionization of the surrounding material.

When posting the image I realized that there are surprisingly few images on Astrobin focusing on this big structure and including all of it. This is a three panel mosaic with a lot of overlap taken with my Samyang 135. To this I have added RASA8 data to the highlights of the nebula. All through IDAS NBZ Ha+Oiii filters. Data collected over four years, with most of the Samyang data from last week. Totally 37+ hours processed in PI and PS with the XT tools of course.

Cheers, Göran

[ollypenrice]

Nice work. I love this nebula and, like you, am surprised by how rarely it's imaged. Maybe it's just too big to appeal to non-mosaic makers.

Olly

[gorann]

15 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

Nice work. I love this nebula and, like you, am surprised by how rarely it's imaged. Maybe it's just too big to appeal to non-mosaic makers.

Olly

Thanks Olly! I have now added one more panel to the left to include the planetary nebula WHDS1 (aka WeDe 1).

Göran

[WolfieGlos]

Great image again Goran. I didn’t realise it had so much depth to it, generally it seems to be shown as a “big red blob” on widefield camera images with the night sky, but this shows otherwise. There’s clearly a lot of depth and detail to it, and if you hadn’t said what it was, I wouldn’t have guessed!