What the heck is this?

I was piecing together an image of m42 the other night and noticed something I never ever noticed anywhere (observations, photos, etc) before. It is the small object circled in the photo. When I noticed it, I looked at other reference photos, and in every one of them, there it is. Mostly looks like an odd star in other photos. Here, it almost appears as a small planetary nebula. Anybody know what it is? Just very very curious; I can't believe I never noticed it before.

Attached Image:

It is indeed a very red star (sorry, I don't know its name or designation) -- visible in all M43 pics I've run across. Note its position as the apex of an equilateral triangle, with NU (aka HD37061, at the "core" of M43) and the dimmer star at the tip of the "comma" both serving as the other two corners.

You should see this puppy in infra-red. Check this SEDS image:
www.seds.org/messier/Pics/More/m43_2ms.jpg
and compare it to any other non-IR pic. It's amazing how many "invisible" red stars clutter this field.

I'm going to have to pay particular attention, next time I'm cruising the M43 region. I know it's dimmer than mag. 9 -- maybe magnitude ~12-ish(?).

If anyone else has more info, please chime in.

By the way -- very nice shot, Andrew. Lots of structural detail and plenty of color info, too. Thanks for sharing.

Best wishes.
-Dan