The Great Nebula in Orion is also known as Messier objects M42 and M43.
The large, red area is M42 and the smaller, red tip is M43.
At the top of the image is a blue area classified as NGC 1977,
also known as The Running Man Nebula to some folks, since you
can see what looks like a man running with arms outstretched.
Can't see it? A lot of other people can't either. :>)
This object is about 1,500 light years distance,
located in our Milky Way galaxy.

It is the birthplace of many new stars as the nebula gases,
left over when a large star reached the end of its life and
blew off its outer layers of gas and dust,
converge through gravity to create new stars.

John Love was kind enough to let me use his M42 data
for this image. By combining the image data from John's
and my exposures, I was able to bring out more color and
depth than is available in each of our individual images.

Please click on "Original" at the bottom of this page to see the largest size available.
If you press the F11 key you will see the image full screen

Bill:
Date taken: March, 2005
Location: Denton, Texas
Telescope: Orion 80ED f/7.5 FL 600mm
Camera: Canon 300D DSLR @ Prime Focus
Exposures: 28 at 3 minutes; 1 at 2 minutes; 3 at 1 minute.
Total exposure time: 1 hour and 29 minutes @ ISO 1600; All in Raw mode

John:
Date taken: December, 2009
Location: Sanger, Texas
Telescope: Orion 80ED f/7.5 FL 600mm
Camera: Orion Star Shoot Pro
Exposures: 28 at 2 minutes
Total exposure time: 56 minutes

Total combined time: 2 hours 25 minutes

Processed in ImagesPlus, Maxim ES and Photoshop CS2