Science 18

Science at Parramatta High
The Belt and Sword of Orion
— September 28 2000 —

Move your mouse cursor over the image (and wait a bit) to view a legend.
More information below.

This photo shows the Sword of Orion and two of the three stars which make up Orion's Belt

Of interest are:

The Orion Nebula - surely the grandest of all nebulae - this gas cloud is visible to the naked eye as a fuzzy patch in the centre of the Sword.
The Horsehead nebula - (sigh) - not visible in this photo, though it is there... honest! The labels overlay shows you where this famous celestial chess-piece is.
NGC 2024 - very attractive nebula just visible in this photo.

Together, these stars form the asterism the saucepan (shown at left), well known to most southern hemisphere night-sky viewers.
The photo has been inverted to match the northern hemisphere view. This way, Orion's sword hangs correctly from his belt!
The photo doesn't include the two left-most stars of the saucepan.

At left is all of Orion. Click here to see the detail.

See Scorpius or Scorpius and Ophiuchus or Sagittarius and the eclipsed moon.

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On to Saturn, Jupiter, or the moon, in much more detail.