This Southern Hemisphere object near the northern boundary of Corona Australis, the Southern Crown a giant molecular cloud complex streches out across a rich starfield, effectively blocking light from the more distant background stars in the Milky Way.
This lovely area is nicknamed The Anteater Nebula by amateur astronomers, because of
the similarity in visual appearance with the anteater. The body of the animal is the dark brownish clouds in the left part of the image, the eyes are the two bright stars in the centre, and the snout is the bending stripe of dark cloud to the right.
Near the center of this image you can see that this dark molecular cloud has a group of reflection nebulae including NGC 6729, NGC 6726, and IC 4812. Their characteristic blue color is produced as light from hot stars is reflected by the cosmic dust. This giant molecular cloud complex is also rich in Herbig–Haro objects or protostars and some very young stars. Herbig-Haro or HH objects are small patches of nebulosity linked to new born stars. Stars that are or have ejected gas and that gas collides with nearby clouds of gas at enormous speeds.
The Anteater and its different parts, including the reflection nebulae, the young stars formed in it and the Herbig-Haro objects are at about the same distance, 420 light-years from our Earth, being one of the closest star forming regions.
But the globular cluster in the upper right corner, looking like an ant colony the Anteater is searching for, composed of old stars, is a much farther object with a distance about 28000 light-years.
The NGC 6726 were first recorded by Johann Friedrich Julius Schmidt in 1865.
INSTRUMENT Takahashi FSQ-106ED
CAMERA Canon EOS 60Da
MOUNT Skywatcher HEQ-5 pro
GUIDING Lacerta MGen Autoguider
EXPOSURE TIME 63x4min iso 1600
DATE 2018.05.20.
LOCATION Isabis Farm, Namibia
