One of the brightest nebulae in the night sky and closest to earth. The Great Orion Nebula is a star forming region visible in the constellation of Orion just below Orion's belt. Also known as Orion's sword its bright core is clearly visible to the naked eye even in light polluted skies.

A true jewel of the winter night sky, this stellar nursery is located about 1350 light years from Earth and is about 24 light years across. Lots of hot young stars within the nebula emit large amounts of ionizing ultraviolet radiation. This radiation causes the gas within the nebula to glow in the fluorescent colours presented to you here. This image is an RGB true colour image and was shot using separate red, green and blue filters with a cooled monochrome Astro camera.

The central bright area is known as the Trapezium and is an extremely bright cluster of stars at the nebulas centre. A few bright stars are visible in the trapezium centre here. However, Hubble infrared images have revealed that there are hundreds more stars shrouded within the billowing dust clouds of the nebula.

Photographer: Ronan Hunt Full Resolution: 3348x4954 pix, 1/1 Edition Jpeg Image Credit: Ronan Hunt