IC2599 - The Keyhole Nebula

This picture shows two interesting objects in the constellation of Carina , basically part of the Eta Carina CAR OB1 nebula complex.

IC2599 or “The Keyhole Nebula” is an emission nebula at a distance of 7500 light years from us. It has a round shape which resembles a human face and the story goes that it looks like the Nobel-prize poet Lucila Godoy Alcayaga which was also known as “Gabriela Mistral”. So this is why this nebula is often called The Gabriela Mistral Nebula.

The beautiful star cluster on the upper left is called NGC 3293 and these stars all formed at the same time, at the same distance from Earth and out of the same cloud of gas and dust, giving them the same chemical composition. As a result clusters like this are ideal objects for testing stellar evolution theory. A small veil drops just like a curtain and the stars appear to be on the center stage of this galactic composition.