Zeta Orionis is near the top of this nebula, one of the three stars in Orion's belt. The actual nebula contains an 8.5 magnitude star. The nebula is red because of the presence of hydrogen (This linked to a jokes, and the only one I didn't know, "A neutron walks in to the same bar. He sits down and says to the bar tender, "Hey, how much for a beer?" The bar tender looks at him and says, "For you, no charge!" was pretty funny. Hardy har. Anyway, the hydrogen atoms (ionized, so they are recombining, making them glow red) are from the Orion molecular cloud, which is a stellar nursery and contains several other nebulae including the Horsehead Nebula which is about 1500 light-years. A young star is believed to be the source of infrared radiation powering the glow through ionization.
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