M43 Nebula in Orion

The Orion nebula is one of the most beautiful diffuse nebula in the sky. The distance to this nebula is some 1600-1900 light years and its diameter is about 30 light years with the central area about 5-6 light years wide. The light of this nebula is fluorescense produced by the ultraviolet radiation from the stars in its middle (theta Orion aka the Trapezium).

M43 is the nebulosity just to the right of M42 while the greenish nebula on the right side of the picture is NGC1977, the Running Man nebula. If you move the mouse over this image, you will see M42 and M43 alsong with all of NGC1977. If you then hold down the mouse button, you will see this nebula along with Orion's belt and the Flame and horsehead nebula.

Images taken with TEC-140 Telescope mounted on Losmandy G11 mount. Camera used was a Canon EOS20D used at prime focus.

Fifteen 3 minute, fifteen 1 minute, fifteen 20 second, and fifteen 5 second exposures dark compensated, aligned and stacked, background removed and digitaly developed in ImagesPlus 2.75 and combined using layer masks.