The dreamy “Running Man” nebula.

I captured the raw data for this using the Seestar smart telescope in the darker skies of the Blue Mountain earlier this week (~3 hours worth), and then processed it on a laptop using a standard astrophotography workflow.

What is the Running Man made of?

It’s made of space “dust”, matter that doesn’t give off light like a star, and therefore appears dark. This dust happens to be near bright, coloured stars and glows by reflecting their coloured light, creating what is known as a “Reflection Nebula”. The juxtaposition of star birth, star glow and filamentous dark dust is what creates the final appearance to our eye.

Running Man sits right on top of the Great Orion Nebula. You can actually see the bloom of the Orion nebula at the bottom of the figure.