The clamshell nebula 2200 ly away, is composed primarily of adjacent hydrogen regions with a faint central glow from ionized oxygen.
Between us and the nebula interstellar dust can be seen as dark and wispy streaks blocking the light from the nebula behind.
Peaking through the nebula a handful and background galaxies can be seen with them appearing to be from the same galactic cluster about 165 million light years away.
This image was taken with an Askar 103 Apo with a 0.8x reducer, 2600MM pro camera with Astronomik Deep Sky RGB and Antlia 4.5nm Ha and Oiii filters.
Shot from starfront observatories over about 2 weeks for a total integration time of 28 hours.
https://app.astrobin.com/u/Young_Astronomer?i=vsctvi#gallery
by NaveenRavindar