In the beginning

M42, the Orion Nebula, has a special place in my heart and my catalog of deep sky objects. Back in 2003 Dad got me a little telescpe for Christmas, the Meade ETX-60AT. This is very similar to the 90mm scope I got recently and brought to NMS, only 1/3 smaller and with full tracking and GOTO. It was a great first scope, and I still have it and use it.

Any way, I took it out one fine, clear winter's night not long after. By "out," I mean to the driveway in the back yard of our home in Dayton. By "in Dayton" I mean in the city under the orange skies. Nevertheless when I turned that little scope on M42 in Orion what I saw made me literally gasp! I had never seen anything in the natural world, apart from my wife and children, that was as beautiful as this! This large, bright, wispy, delicate cloud, with a hint of green color, lit up across the lightyears of night by those tiny, bright stars.... well, I just had no idea anything like this could exist in the night, to be seen by small me with my small scope on small earth. God must truly love us and want us to be happy!

I was hooked.

In New Mexico, it is incredibly beautiful. My sketch does it no justice. This was the last object I observed at NMS, which should be enough to fuel my astropassion for a some time to come. I'm still hooked.

My sketch of M42-Orion Nebula, seen in 25" Dob with 55 mm plossl e.p. Dobs flip and reverse images.
I inverted the color and fiddled with the image a bit in PS-Elements3.

M42 photo. I borrowed this from http://homepage.mac.com/andjames/Page204.htm.
I also turned 90º CCW and flipped it vertically so it would line up for comparison.