Sidcot's Maintenance Manager, Rik Sinnett is a keen astronomer. In his spare time during recent weekends Rik has experiemented with his new camera and taken various images of deep space objects through his telescope, which he has shared with us. The one pictured above is a gaseous emission nebula called The Great Nebula in Orion - M42 by astronomers. It is about 1,350 lightyears distant (each light-year is 9.5 trillion kilometres!), and about 25 lightyears across. The complex of colours comes partly from ionised hydrogen and oxygen gases, and partly from reflected light from super-hot giant stars imbedded in the heart of the nebula.