The Orion Nebula is famous for many reasons. It is the nearest bright nebula to us and can be seen with the naked eye. Its brightness led to it being the first nebula ever photographed (in 1882) and its proximity (1350 light years) means that we know more about it than any other star-forming region. It is also in a very active stage of star formation and it is perfectly placed for us to explore the intimate details of the birth of stars.

The inner regions are glowing mainly in the red light of excited hydrogen, together with some green emission from oxygen—this image was made in green light, using the Anglo-Australian Telescope. The energy for this spectacular display comes from the small cluster of stars in the brightest part of the nebula. An unsharp masks was used during the copying stage, to reveal details in the very bright central region.