The Orion Region

One of the richest star-forming regions accessible from the northern sky. The three bright stars across the upper left are the Belt of Orion; the nebulosity beside the lowest of them is the Flame Nebula, with the dark notch of the Horsehead nearby. The pink glow toward the bottom is the Orion Nebula (M42), about 1,300 light-years away, where young massive stars are ionising the gas cloud that formed them. The colour comes mostly from hydrogen-alpha emission at 656 nm.