This nebula, known as NGC 1788 was discovered by William Herschel on 1 February 1786 using his 18.7 inch reflector. He cataloged it as V 32 and noted: "Considerably bright, very large, much diffused and vanishing. Near and south following bright star." Dreyer added the nebula as NGC 1788 to his New General Catalogue published in 1888.
NGC 1788 is a starforming region with reflection nebula surrounded by a glowing red ring of hydrogen gas which is faintly visible in the picture. The stars inside the nebula are only about a million years old, which is very young compared to most stars
The reflection nebula is reflecting light from in particular a tenth magnitude star, located in the northwestern sector of the nebula. To the south, NGC 1788 is crossed by a dark band, known as LDN 1616.
The distance of the nebulous complex is estimated at 1470 light-years from us.
Sometimes this nebula is called "Cosmic Bat Nebula" or just "Bat Nebula".
This image is the result of 19 missions through the Australia One telescope. Each mission takes a 50 second picture for the L-channel and 20 second pictures for each of the R, G and B channels resulting in a total exposure of about 35 minutes. The image files are processed in PixInsight.
Click on the image to get a larger version