The Orion Nebula
As we get our new research telescope ready (collimate, sort out guiding, etc.), we'd like to celebrate the old one. Here's an image of the Orion Nebula taken 11/11/2017 with our old 14" Celestron. Hundreds of 5-second images were taken to avoid saturation of bright stars, then stacked for 39 minutes of total exposure in luminance, red, green, and blue filters, overlaid to create a color image. Our then-student Ellen Pariser processed this. Today, I tweaked it a wee bit to bring out more cloud details in the background (only took me 20 minutes in GIMP).
A few things of note: this nebula is about 1500 light years away from us, and it's not alone. It's part of the giant Orion Molecular Cloud Complex which basically takes up the entire constellation of Orion in the night sky. It's a region of space that forms new stars. Parts of it with hot, bright stars are lit up and were recognized as "nebulae" already hundreds of years ago. The darker parts of the cloud could not then be seen.