Deep sky · Nebula in Orion · M 42 · NGC 1976
M 42
Orion Nebula
The Orion Nebula: a star nursery you can see with the naked eye, the middle “star” of Orion’s Sword.
- Type
- Nebula
- Designations
- M 42 · NGC 1976
- Constellation
- Orion
- Apparent magnitude
- 4.0
- Apparent size
- 1.5° × 60′
- Position (J2000)
- RA 5h 35m · Dec −5° 23′
Look for
Even a small telescope shows the four stars of the Trapezium at its heart. They are only a million or so years old — and their ultraviolet light is what makes the whole cloud glow.
Discovery
In 1880 Henry Draper took the first photograph of a nebula — this one. In the 1990s Hubble found discs of dust around its young stars: planetary systems in the making.
Did you know
It is the closest large region of star formation to Earth, about 1,300 light-years away.