The Belt of Orion

The belt of Orion is a large area of intestellar dust, and star forming regions. The Horsehead nebula around the left most star, Alnitak is a glowing red region with clouds of dust obscuring some parts, creating the silouette of a horses head. The area around the central 'star' of Orion's Sword is the Great Orion Nebula, (M42). This is a stellar nursery, with clouds of dust coalessing into new stars._ As you can see from the image, the entire area contains large clouds of intestellar dust, some glowing due to reflection from nearby stars (bluish) and some emitting their own light in the hydrogen alpha line (red), and some just obscuring.