The Orion Nebula (also known as Messier 42, M42, or NGC 1976) taken from my Creedmoor site on January 28th, 2017 is a diffuse nebula situated in the Milky Way, being south of Orion's Belt in the constellation of Orion. It is one of the brightest nebulae, and is visible to the naked eye in the night sky. M42 is located at a distance of 1,344 ± 20 light years and is the closest region of massive star formation to Earth. The M42 nebula is estimated to be 24 light years across. It has a mass of about 2000 times the mass of the Sun. Older texts frequently refer to the Orion Nebula as the Great Nebula in Orion or the Great Orion Nebula.
The image has been altered to remove the bulk of the stars and highlight the nebulosity (the trapezium was left in).