As one of the most prominent constellations in the sky, Orion hosts the nearest massive star factory, the famous Orion Nebula Cluster. Invisible to the naked eye and stretching over tens of degrees, the Orion Molecular Cloud is home to thousands of young stars which yet may form future solar systems.

The Vienna Survey in Orion, VISION, is the first effort to study the global star formation processes in the entire region. As the first part in this study a large survey has been conducted with ESO's Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy. Stretching over the entire Orion A molecular cloud complex, it is the most detailed view of an entire star factory yet.

Based on the success of this project and starting in April 2017, the new ESO public survey VISIONS - VISTA Star Formation Atlas will map many nearby star forming regions in equally impressive detail.