The Dark Doodad Nebula drifts through southern skies toward the small constellation Musca, The Fly.
The dusty cosmic cloud is seen against rich starfields just south of the Coalsack Nebula and the Southern Cross.
Stretching for about 3 degrees across the center of this field of view, the Dark Doodad is punctuated near its upper tip by a yellowish globular star cluster NGC 4372.
NGC 4372 roams the halo of our Milky Way Galaxy, a background object some 20,000 light-years away and only by chance along our line of sight to the Dark Doodad.
The Dark Doodad's well-defined silhouette belongs to the Musca molecular cloud.
Fun fact, its better-known alliterative moniker was first coined by astro-imager and writer Dennis di Cicco in 1986 while observing Comet Halley from the Australian outback.
The Dark Doodad is around 700 light-years distant and over 30 light-years long.
(Text © Nasa)
Is it just me, or does anyone else see Roadrunner streaking through the stars, leaving a long column of dust behind him?
Photographed from my astro-buddy The Bluester's dark site in Rural Victoria, before the winter clouds rolled in... (permanently it seems!)
Astrobin