Astrophotographer Joel Martin captured a gorgeous view of the Orion Nebula (M42) shining 1,500 light-years from Earth, revealing spectacular detail in the stellar nursery as it hung in the winter skies over the seaside village of Del Mar in California.
Martin’s image highlights the nebula’s chaotic, radiation-sculpted structure, whose cosmic dust and gas are being actively shaped by the thousands of energetic young stars that coalesced within its roiling expanse.
The nebula’s close proximity to Earth has made it a popular target for astronomers looking to unravel the complex environment in which new stars like our sun are born. Scientists have even used powerful observatories such as the Hubble Space Telescope to capture images of protoplanetary disks surrounding newborn stellar bodies, much like the one our own solar system formed from some 4.5 billion years ago.
Martin captured the nebula’s light over the course of three hours in December 2025 using a 6-inch (157 mm) Newtonian reflector paired with a set of narrow-band filters, which only permitted light from specific wavelengths to be collected. “There has been a staggering amount of rain in Southern California and I had to grab the few hours of clear skies when I could, so I was battling light pollution, clouds, dew and the moon,” Martin told Space.com in an email.
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The light collected using each filter was then assigned its own color “channel” during the editing process using the astrophotography program PixInsight. “My personal aesthetic is to render images as close as possible to what your eyes could see if they were as sensitive as an astronomical camera,” continued Martin. “Thus, I used the average OIII signal for green and blue and the sum of SII and H-alpha for red”.
How to see the Orion Nebula
January is the best time of the year to see the Great Orion Nebula as it climbs high overhead in the winter sky. Look to the southeastern horizon in the hours following sunset in mid-January to find the recognizable stars of the constellation Orion. Next locate the three stars of the Orion’s Belt asterism.
Look less than 5 degrees — roughly the span of your three middle fingers held at arm’s length — to the lower right of the bottom most star Alnitak to find a tighter line of three stars representing “Orion’s Sword”. The fuzzy patch of light surrounding the middle star is Orion’s Nebula, which is visible to the naked eye on clear nights.
If you’re inspired to explore it yourself, check out our roundups of the best telescopes for exploring the night sky and photographers can find our top picks for the best cameras and lenses for astrophotography.
Editor’s Note: If you would like to share your deep space astrophotography with Space.com’s readers, then please send your photo(s) and comments along with your name and location to [email protected].
