Orion Nebula
Designation: M42 / NGC 1976
Hemisphere: Northern
Constellation: Orion
Distance: 1,350 light years
Object type: Diffuse nebula
Description
The Orion Nebula is a diffuse nebula, a cloud of interstellar gas and dust from which new stars are born; in fact, this is the closest large star-forming region to Earth, about 1,350 light years away from Earth. Its central region hosts four massive stars known as The Trapezium – a very young open cluster that illuminates the nebula.
The Orion Nebula extends for roughly 30 light years across and has a mass of around 2,000 that of our Sun; it is so bright that is easily visible to the naked eye, even from light polluted areas. Read the article here.
In this image I also captured the Running Man Nebula (Sh2-279), an HII region and bright nebulae that also includes a reflection nebula and a star cluster.
Equipment
Mount: Sky-watcher HEQ5-Pro
Main Telescope: William Optics ZS73EDii
Main camera: ZWO ASI294MC-Pro
Main camera filter: Optolong L-eXtreme
Guidescope: Svbony SV165
Guide camera: ZWO ASI174MM
Guide camera filter: Astronomik UV/IR cut
Acquisition details
Total integration time: 3 hours
Acquisition software: ZWO AsiAir
Processing software: PixInsight – GIMP
Location: Luxembourg
Full size image
The Lonely Photon 