M42 is special for me. It's the reason I started my astronomy journey and it's my favorite object in the winter night sky. I keep coming back to it again and again and it became a nice benchmark of my skills in astrophotography.
My Dad got a new Seestar S50 and picked "Orion Nebula" on the app. 10 minutes later, it stacked the images it had taken and gave us this view of the stellar nursery.
The Great Nebula in Orion - M42
This is one of the visibly largest objects in our night sky but it requires a long exposure to see all the nebulosity, it is located at what appears to be the central star of Orion's sword which is in fact a star factory made up of massive amount of gas, mainly Hydrogen Alpha.
This is 1,344 light years away so you're looking back in time 1,344 years.