~ post by Helge Kooistra

The good old Orion Nebula. The Mayan Indians believed it was the 'cosmic fire of creation' and they were quite right about that!

I wanted to bring out the violent nature of this region, lots of colliding dust and gasses, under the pressure of which new stars will be formed.
In the center (left to the big cloud of dust) you see the 'Trapezium', 4 stars that are very active and blowing so much stuff out that it disrupts other starts in the region and causes the waves you see. In the third and fourth closeup you can -barely, but visible- see a shock wave in front of a young star.

a total of 9,5 hours of pictures taken from my backyard, in a Bortle 9 zone (what means: light pollution all over the place!)