Corona Australis Nebulosity: A bit away from the galactic plane in the constellation of Corona Australis (Southern Crown) in a distance of approx. 500 light years lies one of the closest and most interesting star generating regions. The huge Corona Australis Molecular Cloud (the rather starless area in this image) obstructs the light from the background stars. Only the light of a few very bright young stars is reflected from the dense dust and generates the beautiful reflection nebulae in this image.
The nebulae on the left with the two bright knots are NGC 6727 and NGC 6726, the one to the right IC 4812. The smaller triangular nebula denotes NGC 6729 with R CrA at its peak. The small arclike structure is designated HH 100 and is a so called Herbig-Haro object. These objects are to be believed stars in the very early phase of their life when tremendous amounts of matter are ejected from the star in long jets, probaly due to very strong magnetic fields.

Towards the top of the image you find a wonderful Globular Cluster NGC 6723 which looks to be rather close to the nebulae, but really is much farther away in a distance of some 30000 light years.

Click also the Hi-Res version to have even a closer look at the smaller structures.

 The image was selected "Astrophoto of the Week" by astronomie.de