Nebulae M42 Region Previous Next Enlarge to Full Size Date: 1/9/2006 Located at a distance of about 1,600 (or perhaps 1,500) light years, the Orion Nebula is the brightest diffuse nebula in the sky, visible to the naked eye, and rewarding in telescopes of every size, from the smallest glasses to the greatest Earth-bound observatories and the Hubble Space Telescope. It is the main part of a much larger cloud of gas and dust which extends over 10 degrees well over half the constellation Orion. The linear extend of this giant cloud is well several hundreds of light years. The Orion Nebula itself is still a big object in the sky, extending some 66x60 arc minutes, thus covering more than four times the area of the full Moon. This corresponds to a linear diameter of about 30 light years. Ha/Ha-OIII-OIII Dec. 22/2005 to Jan. 6/2005 Toronto, Canada Pentax 300mm f3.5, SBIG ST8i CCD camera Ha 1x11min, 10x5min, 11x10min OIII 8x5min

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