Messier 43

[An excerpt from Dale Holt’s blog: Chippingdaleobservatory Blog ]
…I pushed onto the great Orion nebula, just intending to take a look but ended up once again trying to be artistic in a rendering of M43 the little brother to the much better known M42, to me this nebula is a ‘morsel’ about to be swallowed by the Angel fish that is M42 the great Orion Nebula. Putting dazzling M42 just out of the field to avoid its distraction one could view this nebula as a standalone and appreciate its form and the intricate darker regions and lanes that bisect it. When I showed my pastel sketch to friend Es Reid the next day, flatteringly he referred to it as like an ‘impressionist’s painting’ that will do for me 🙂