M42 Orion Nebula
The great Orion Nebula is one of the brightest deep space objects in the sky. Surrounding the middle star of Orion's sword, it is visible to the naked eye on clear nights, easily seen in binoculars, and impressive in a telescope of any size. M42 is 1300 light-years from Earth and 24 light-years across. It is one of the most studied areas of the sky, consisting of turbulent gases, star-forming regions, brown dwarfs, and proto-planetary systems. The four brightest stars of the Trapezium are visible in this image as a tight cluster when you zoom into the center, behind the bird-like head and just above the light brown cone-shaped cloud. North is to the left.

Scope/Mount: Orion ED80 Doublet Refractor with AstroTech AT2FF Field Flattener, Celestron CI-700 Mount
Camera: Orion StarShoot Pro V2 one-shot color
Guiding: QHY5L-IIM through Orion Deluxe OAG, PHD guiding software
Exposure: (12) 10 min + (10) 1 min
Software: Nebulosity, PhotoShop CS2
Comment: 01-13-2018, Tierra del Sol, CA, moderate wind, HDR processed using PhotoShop layers.