The dusty region that covers most of this impressive image is home to a large number of newborn stars. NGC 6727, which is part of a vast complex of extensive clouds and resembles a baboon at its center, lies 500 light-years from Earth in the direction of the star constellation Corona Australis. This distance is about a third of the distance of the famous Orion Nebula. Brown dust clouds effectively block the light of more distant stars, obscuring stars in the process of formation. The mouth openings of this prominent dust cloud, circular with the blue reflection nebulae cataloged as NGC 6726, 6727, 6729 and IC 4812, have a red appearance due to the emission of hydrogen gas. Also visible in the upper left corner of the image is the globular star cluster NGC 6723, about 30,000 light-years away.

Selected on September 24, 2024 as NASA's Astronomy Photo, this image was captured by Alpha Zhang & Ting Yu.

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