The highlight of this image is the tiny bright reflection nebula, NGC 1999 located in the middle of my image. It is around 1,350 light-years away in the constellation of Orion and is just south of the famous Orion Nebula. The nebula shines not because it is producing its own light but rather from reflected light from the star, V380 Orionis - the star shines on dust in the Orion A Giant Molecular Cloud. The dark area in the center resembling a keyhole was orinally thought to be a dark nebula or Bok globule, however, recent studies indicate that it is an empty space which is still quite interesting.
The rest of this region is filled with faint hydrogen gas in addition to the dust from the molecular cloud. It is much less bright than the nearby Orion Nebula but still shows quite a bit of radiating flow structure. There are also mant other features in the field such as Herbig-Haro (HH) objects (objects associated with newborn stars) and other reflction nebulae.
