Real-life Time MachinePatipharn UdomphornviratAward: Top 100
School: oaks christian school This is an image of the Orion Nebula, located in the Orion constellation within the Milky Way galaxy, our galactic home. The nebula is approximately 1, 344 light-years away from Earth. This means the light we see now left the nebula around 1, 344 years ago–a concept that is just mind-blowing to me. This is the closest thing humans have to a time machine, just by looking at the night sky. The Orion Nebula is a stellar nursery, where remnants of previous stars form new ones. It's fascinating that we're witnessing a new star being born. Contrary to what you might think, capturing this image didn't require a fancy telescope or an expensive lens. I used an average mirrorless camera with a 140mm telephoto lens. The challenge lay in the journey. My parents drove me around 3 hours away from the city to find a spot with a clear sky. The moon had to be in its new phase, where no light was reflected, and the sky had to be free of clouds and light pollution. Once I found the perfect spot, I took over 500 frames of the nebula and combined them to form this image. The reason I had to take hundreds of images was because the Earth's rotation causes star trails during long exposure, which is not what I wanted for this image. Astrophotography is not about having the best equipment, it's about how much effort you're willing to take to get that photo. 
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