Bluer objects are either foreground stars or well-developed massive stars whose intense light ionizes the hydrogen in this region. The dark areas are due to obscuration of the light from background objects by large amounts of dust - this effect also causes many of those stars to appear quite red. A cluster of young stars in the upper-left part of the photo, so deeply embedded in the nebula that it is invisible in optical light, is well visible in this infrared image. The seeing was 0.5 - 0.6 arcsec. The sky field shown measures approx.
North is up and East is left.
It provides a deep and unsually wide look into a giant star forming region in the Milky Way. It is located at a distance of approx. The observations were made in the course of a research project that is aimed at the detection and study of the formation of massive stars, by means of near-infrared direct and spectral exposures with this instrument. The goal of these particular observations was to identify massive stars that are in the act of formation in this area and to record their infrared spectra for a detailed physical study of these rather rare objects. It is now well established that the formation of stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way system, predominantly takes place in Giant Molecular Clouds .