The Great Orion Nebula (M42) - Medium Field
The Great Nebula in Orion, an immense, nearby starbirth region, is probably the most famous of all astronomical nebulas. Here, glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud only 1500 light-years away. The Great Nebula in Orion can be found with the unaided eye near the easily identifiable belt of three stars in the popular constellation Orion. In addition to housing a bright open cluster of stars known as the Trapezium, the Orion Nebula contains many stellar nurseries. These nurseries contain much hydrogen gas, hot young stars, proplyds, and stellar jets spewing material at high speeds. Also known as M42, the Orion Nebula spans about 40 light years and is located in the same spiral arm of our Galaxy as the Sun.
Aside M42 this image includes the popular "running man" nebula group on the top of the frame, a group reflection nebulae (NGC1977, NGC 1973 and NGC1975) also associated with Orion's giant molecular cloud about and which are dominated by the characteristic blue color of interstellar dust reflecting light from hot young stars. Further south, the beautiful "peninsula" attached to M42 which lays at the center of the frame is catalogued M43. This part of the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex is itself a star forming region that displays intricately-laced streams of dark dust although it is really composed mostly of glowing hydrogen gas. The entire Orion field is located about 1600 light years away. Opaque to visible light, the picturesque dark dust is created in the outer atmosphere of massive cool stars and expelled by strong outer winds of protons and electrons (text adapted from APOD).
Takahashi CCA250 (250/f5) - ZWO 6200MM - L (330m) R (60m) G (60m) B (60m) - AMT Observatory (A.Lau/M.Lorenzi/T.Tse), Río Hurtado, Chile.
