"The Sword and the Rose"
Highly Commended - Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition 2010 (Greenwich Observatory)
3rd place - SPSP 2010 Astro-Imaging Competition

Lying just south of the three stars that form Orion's belt, Orion's sword contains M42,M43 and NGC 1977 (The Running Man Nebula), a complex cloud of glowing hydrogen gas and dust. This hotbed of star formation, historcally refered to as the Great Orion Nebula, M42 lies about 1350 light years away, making it the brightest and closest star forming region to Earth.

For more detail, see Rob Gendler's description of NGC 1977 ( http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/NGC1977text.html ) and M42 ( http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/Orioncloudtext.html )