Start exploring the night sky with our top picks for beginner-friendly telescopes. Tested for clarity, ease of use and build ...

Text and photos by Michael J. Meyer Anyone who has visited Ocracoke Island knows how special it is: from stunning sunsets to magnificent views of the Milky Way on a moonless night after a cold ...

Orion Nebula reveals star formation, hot gases, and cosmic dust dynamics The ORION Nebula M42 is a nebula that is faintly visible in the night sky in ...

Many know the Great Orion Nebula (M42) in Orion’s Sword as a bright diffuse nebula — a glowing cloud of cosmic gas illuminated by the Trapezium star cluster. But the Orion Nebula also has a ...

Out of all the astrophotography shots I captured with the OnePlus 13, my imaging of M42 the Great Orion Nebula is my favorite.

The brightest among them is Orion Nebula (Messier 42). It is part of an asterism known as Orion’s Sword. Appearing between the three points of light, it is located 1,344 lightyears away.

M42 The Great Orion Nebula starts off lower in the horizon, but the Pixel 9 Pro XL impressively captures the light and gas coming off the nebula.

Orion is a familiar constellation in the night sky, recognizable by the “belt” of three stars at its waist and the red glow of (eventually) doomed Betelgeuse at its left shoulder.

This night, Orion and the M42 nebula were caught in the branches of a close-by tree. With the cold, waiting for it to rise higher was not an option.

The best known of the latter is the iconic Orion nebula, a gas cloud so huge and bright that it’s visible to the naked eye despite being about 1,300 light-years from Earth.

At just 1,400 light-years from Earth, the Orion Nebula, M42, is visible to the naked eye as a faint smudge. Source: NASA ...