1270 light years is pretty far

Tonight I was FINALLY able to use the mounting adapter Doug and Sarah bought me for Christmas to mount my Canon Rebel XTi DSLR to Doug's Orion telescope. We took a few shots, and while many of them were of poor quality (due to light pollution, moisture in the atmosphere, and less than stellar tracking), we did get a few that looked okay.

This picture is of the Orion Nebula, which is 1270 light years away, roughly 7.46*10¹⁵ (7.4 quadrillion) miles away. The light we saw tonight left this nebula about 500 years before Dogen Zenji established the Soto sect of Zen Buddhism and about 250 years before Leif Ericson landed in North America.