This object is an enormous - over 30 light-years in diamater - cloud of hydrogen gas and dust. It lies at a distance of roughly 1500 light-years. It's actually a stellar nursery. Within the core of this object stars are forming. Through a telescope you would see what at first appear to be 4 stars (known as The Trapezium) but upon closer inspection, there are at least 6; more by many estimates. The radiation from these young, hot stars is ionizing the hydrogen gas resulting in the red glow. This is an Emission nebula. To the left of M42 is NGC1975. This nebula is a reflection nebula. Its light is derrived from the light of nearby stars reflecting off the dust. This shot is a 20 minute exposure on Kodak E200 slide film through a 9.25" telescope (2350mm focal length) @ f/6.3. Unfortunately, the focus wasn't perfect and there was a some tracking errors - I'll blame that on the wind ;-) Thanks for looking - and taking the time to read all this!