A 30-second exposure of the HII region, M42 (the Orion Nebula) taken through the RCT’s Hα filter. The full-field image is nearly 10 arcminutes square with North up and East to the left. Major features such as the Dark Bay (upper left), the Bar and the Trapezium stars (center) are clearly visible. The zoomed image presents a more detailed view of the inner region of the nebula. Stars fainter than 16th magnitude jumping castle are visible near the Trapezium. Emission features such as ionized knots and shock fronts are clearly visible.

Processed from BVRH-alpha RCT exposures taken in March, 2014. M63 is a well known LINER and there is some debate about the nature of the bright central source.

The above image was processed from 4 individual frames in B, V, R and H-alpha selected from among those taken in the ongoing monitoring of SN 2014J. The supernova can just be seen against the galaxy background below and to the right of the center of M82. Click on the image to see an enlarged view.