Space and Astronomy News 14th February 2026

OM SYSTEM OM-3 ASTRO - what's so special about it?

There's been a LOT of interest in the news this week about the release of the new OM SYSTEM OM-3 ASTRO camera. 

This is an astronomy version of their popular OM-3 mirrorless camera. It has much the same features of the OM-3 with some important changes. 

There are several features in this new camera that make it of interest to astrophotographers, but we'll cove how it "sees" the night sky a bit differently to normal cameras.

One thing that many people starting off with using DSLR or mirrorless cameras for astrophotography is what these cameras are built for compared to what they'll see when attached to a telescope or lens pointed at the night sky is quite different.  First of all, even through a large telescope, what the camera will see is quite dark. The second thing to consider is that the wavelengths of light where some of the most spectacular deep-sky objects can be best seen is often blocked by traditional cameras. There is a good reason for this!

What's Hα or Hydrogen Alpha light?

First up, a tiny bit of astrophysics. (I promise, this is quite easy!)

The light we "see" from the Sun is normally called visible light. The light wavelengths go from deep purplish through to dull red. It's produced by the nuclear fusion processes that power the Sun and the wavelengths we see are only a small part of the light the Sun sends our way.  Some of these wavelengths are blocked by the atmosphere and don't reach the surface of the Earth to help protect us. Numerous animals can see light in different colours past the deep purplish ultra violet and into beyond the deep red near infrared that is simply not visible to human eyes.

Other stars also produce wide spectrums of light. Astronomers can tell a lot about how a star works by carefully studying and analysing their light, but even a casual glance at stars will show them as being different colours and this is even more obvious in a telescope.

There are large regions in the Milky Way where new stars are being formed.  These are vast clouds, mainly of hydrogen gas, that will eventually collapse, compress and produce the newest members of the stellar community. These clouds or nebula are also often stunning to observe and photograph. 

Clouds of hydrogen gas no matter how large don't shine on their own.  They rely on light from nearby stars to reveal them to us here on Earth.* If they're close enough, they'll simply reflect the light they receive. These are called "reflection nebula" and the colour from these varies depending on what sort of star lights them up and what makes up the nebula.

If a cloud of gas doesn't reflect the light but absorbs it, over time something has to give! What happens is that the atoms in the gas "drop back" to a lower energy level while sending out a light photon. This process always produces light of the same wavelength or colour regardless of the stars that the hydrogen in the nebula has absorbed energy from. The wavelength is 656.3nm and it's called  Hα or Hydrogen Alpha or sometimes just H-Alpha. This is in the deep red part of the visible spectrum.**

Standard cameras block this part of the spectrum to help improve skin tones, natural light and to generally give photos a natural balance.  However, by doing so they block out some of the light from these wonderful emission nebulae.  They're interesting to astronomers to view because of their size and complexity, as well as being fascinating parts of the Universe for astrophotographers to capture. 

It's not just the Milky Way either. Photos of distant galaxies also feature large patches of bright, pinkish red light. These are where star formation is taking place and we're seeing the Hydrogen Alpha emissions from these areas.

One of the main features of the new OM SYSTEM OM-3 ASTRO camera is that it doesn't block Hα light in the same way the standard version does.

Here are a couple of handy images released by the OM SYSTEM of the region around the famous Great Orion Nebula (M 42) to highlight the differences:

• Shot with OM-3M
• Zuiko Digital ED 75mm F1.8
• 40sec | F2.8 | ISO3200
• Equatorial mount used

• Shot with OM-3 ASTRO
• M.Zuiko Digital ED 75mm F1.8
• 40sec | F2.8 | ISO3200
• Equatorial mount used

You can see right away the extra detail is in the image taken with the OM-3 ASTRO version! To give you an idea how much of the sky is revealed in Hydrogen Alpha, these frames span several times the size of the full Moon.

You can find out more about this new astro camera here.

NASA News: Non-biologic Processes Don’t Fully Explain Mars Organics

We've chatted before about NASA announcing that their Perseverance Rover had found strong indications of past life on Mars and only last week we mentioned that due to budget cuts, NASA was leaving behind curated samples on the surface of Mars that could answer the question one way or another. 

NASA's Curiosity Rover taking a selfie on Mars in 2018

In another tantalising but major announcement this week, NASA has stated that samples collected by its Curiosity Rover contained an abundance of organic materials that cannot be fully explained by non-biological processes.  Materials like these, often called "organics", are the building blocks for life and we see signs of them throughout in the Solar System and deep space. While they're produced by biological processes here on Earth, they can also be made through other non-life means. They are not signs of life in  themselves.

NASA's Curiosity Rover had collected samples on Mars*** and analysed them using its onboard lab. The original conclusion was that there weren't produced by life, however further investigation of the amount and size of the organics found in mudstone called  "Cumberland" cannot be explained by known geological processes.

It's a another case of "More studies about how organics break down on Mars need to be carried out before any final conclusions of life being behind the result ". 

Read more at the NASA site here.

Artemis II fixes are being tested

Finally for this week, NASA has now fixed the hydrogen leaks spotted during the dress rehearsal for the Artemis II that delayed the launch of their Moon mission beyond the expected Feb 6th date.

Further tests are underway, with another full rehearsal including loading and unloading of all propellants due soon.

More here.

Cheers,

Earl White 

BINTEL

14th February 2026

*There are regions called dark nebula, which don't shine from the light of nearby stars. They in fact block out light from more distant stars. For example, on one side of Southern Cross on a dark, Moon free night, you might be able to make out even with your eyes a dark region that stands out from the bright Milky Way behind it. 

**This is a very brief overview of how emission nebulae work! For more details, I'd suggest visiting this page at the COSMOS site at Swinburne University. 

***If you're interested, signs of organic molecules collected by Curiosity include: