Orion Nebula (M42, NGC 1976) Emission Nebula Constellation: Orion Distance: The distance to the Orion Nebula is 1,500 light-years (460 parsecs). Dimensions: The image is 30 arc minutes (13 light-years or 4.0 parsecs) square.
This image is a composite mosaic of many separate expposures made by the ACS instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope and the ESO La Silla 2.2 meter telescope using several different filters isolating the light of specific elements or of specific broad wavelength ranges. The color arises by assigning different hues (colors), to each monochromatic image. In this case the colors are:
HST: F658N Ha red/orange F850LP z red F775W i red F555W V green F435W B blue ESO MPI 2.2m La Silla WFI Dec. 11, 2001: NB#Halpha/7_ESO856 Ha red NB#SIIr/8_ESO857 [S II] red NB#OIII/8_ESO859 [O III] green BB#B/99_ESO842 B blue