Question about the Orion Nebula

[Rassilon]

Thees a star cluster in the center of the nebula called the Trapezium, and I'm wondering if they are IN the center of the nebula as stated by several sites I surfed so far...or are they the distance they are in Celestia? In Celestia the stars are 5400 ly away from the m42 and m43 nebulas...

http://www.galaxi.com/~vhoette/Explorations/Orion'sNebula/trapezium.html

[Guest]

I think, it?s an error in the star database or an error from the conversion because the 4 (realy 6 stars, two are double) stars called the Trapezium are the primary source of high energy radiation that lights up the nebula m42. So they must be in the same distance like the nebula (ca. 1500 ly).

by the way i think it?s a good place to ask for an internal or external utility to edit the stars.dat.
I think for an utility that can search for stars by their catalogue number, display their data like distance, position, spectralclass, etc. and let me edit/correct these data if wrong. Adding new stars where also a great feature. Is somewhere out there, who can create such an utility?

chris, great work i?m waiting for the new version

(please forgive my bad english, i hope it?s not to bad)

[Rassilon]

Thats what I thought....Thanks for the insight...I will edit the stars.dat to reflect as such...