Trapezium is a multiple star in the center of The Great Orion Nebula M42. It consists of the most prominent members of a large star cluster of very young stars.
The surrounding nebula is a huge star formation region located about 1630 light years away in the constellation of Orion. In the center of the nebula is the many luminous newborn stars lighting up the surrounding gas cloud that they condensated from.
M42 is a part of the big Orion Molecular Cloud - a huge clump of very cold gas that has a total mass of about 2000 times the mass of the Sun. The gas from this cloud slowly collapses due to gravity and stars are formed. Whenever a bright new star is formed, its strong light evaporates the opaque gaseous surroundings it formed from, and thus allowing us to see it.

OPTICS 10" Newtonian f/5.2
MOUNT Losmandy G11 equatorial
CAMERA Philips ToUCam Pro SC1 webcam
FILTERS None
EXPOSURE 33x10.5s + 18x1.4s
DATE/TIME 22/11/2005 12:46 UTC
LOCATION My backyard observatory in west Auckland, New Zealand