The Three Sisters, also known as Three Kings or Orion’s Belt, is a well know asterism in the Autumn/Winter sky. It has deep roots in humankind vision of the sky, being represented in pre-historic caves (Lascaux) and featuring in several civilizations mithology and culture, from China to Greece. Even today there is some folklore associated to it, some of it I remember my grandmother talking about it.
That is why it was quite thrilling to me to shoot this region and allow me to use the gift astrophotography has – making visible the invisible. In fact, for me the key feature of this photo is to take a region everybody can see with their own eyes and reveal all the gems that are hidden in plain sight – the beautiful clouds all around Mintaka, Alnilam and Alnitak, as well as the Hersehead and Flame Nebulas. Having someone looking at Orion’s belt and imagining these features which have seen in this photo would make every minute taken to shoot and process it worth.
Shot at Santa Susana, Portugal on the 27th and 28th November 2021.
Technical details:
Telescope: WO RedCat 51 250/f4.9
Camera: QHYCCD 268C
Mount: SW AZ EQ5-GT
Aquisition: 268 x 180 s frames
Processing: PixInsight 1.8