| M42 The Orion Nebula NGC 1976, Constellation: Orion (The Hunter), RA 05h 35.3m DEC -05d 23m Distance: 1,500 light years, Visual Magnitude: 3.7, Diameter: 1.5 x 1.0 degrees Transits at the end of twilight at 8:43pm 7th February, Elevation 63 degrees, due North |
| The Orion Nebula is an example of a stellar nursery where new stars are being born. Observations of the nebula have revealed approximately 700 stars in various stages of formation within the nebula. Recent observations with the Hubble Space Telescope have yielded the major discovery of protoplanetary disks within the Orion Nebula. The HST has revealed more than 150 of these within the nebula, and they are considered to be systems in the earliest stages of solar system formation. The sheer numbers of them have been used as evidence that the formation of star systems is fairly common in our universe. |
| RGB narrow field (mono camera) | colour narrow field (colour camera) | B+W wide field (mono camera) | colour panorama (colour camera) |
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| - Imaged on 20090215 *** first colour image *** |