This picture shows the young open star cluster NGC 346 in the neighboring Small Magellanic Cloud galaxy. The cluster is embedded in the brightest H II region in that galaxy, designated N66. The youngest stars in this open cluster are considered to be just 2 million years old. The intense radiation of these young stars ionize the gas in this H II region resulting in the nice emission nebula visible around the star cluster.
NGC 346 is located in the constellation Tucana (the Toucan) and spans approximately 200 light-years. The distance of the Small Magellanic Cloud galaxy is about 210,000 light years from earth.
In the lower right corner of this image another compact open cluster can be seen. This cluster has the designation NGC 330.
I scheduled 55 missions through the 0.5 meter Australia One telescope with a total exposure time of 1 hour and 41 minutes. The resulting 220 Fits images were combined and further processed in PixInsight.

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