lark (Blue Mountains)

Last weekend I photographed the constellation of Orion. Just for kicks. I had put the FujiFilm J20 into Fireworks mode, turned off the flash, let the camera automatically shoot the image with the self-timer, all the while on a tripod.

Yesterday, I pulled the photo into Fireworks, to see what I could see. I'll I did was set the levels. And I was astonished to see hundreds of stars, down to magnitudes 6 and 7! There is clearly stuff going on at Messier 42 (M42) the Great Nebula with much of the light coming from the Trapezium stars. But there are hints of the Rosette Nebula (Caldwell 49), Messier 78 (M78), and the open cluster Messier 41 (M41)!



8 seconds, f3.1, 6:25, ISO 100

It's not a great image, by any means. I see some trailing with elongated stars at high magnification. But it is very interesting to me what this little camera can detect. I look forward to further experiments...