The Orion Complex - Mosaic

We live in a minor spiral arm of the Milky Way Galaxy, and this is our neighbouring star manufacturing region.

The region’s name is the Orion Complex, and it is dominated by ionised hydrogen gas(the red dusty clouds). Over the past million years, the gas clouds attracted and collapsed, forming thousands of stellar objects, including the famous Orion Nebula and Horsehead Nebula.

Three incredibly bright stars occupy the left side of the image, showcasing the famous Orion's Belt (also known as the Three Kings or Three Sisters). They are bright and blue because they are newly born and massive. Among them is a blue supergiant called Alnitak - the brightest class O star in our night sky. It will live a relatively short life and die with a violent supernova explosion, forming either a black hole or a neutron star. In cosmic terms, that's the equivalent of our neighbour’s son playing with explosives and blowing up on our faces.

(The total integration time of this image is 23 hours, containing both LRGB and Ha data. The data was collected from Heaven's Mirror Observatory in Australia through Telescopelive, which I processed using Pixinsight and Photoshop)