This is a cropped and rotated version of http://upload.pbase.com/gailmarc/image/122872808/large that has been slightly reprocessed to show colour to best effect.

Lying about 6000 light years away in the constellation of Centaurus, the Running Chicken Nebula (aka the Lambda Centauri nebula) IC 2948 is located just a few degrees southeast of the famous Eta Carinae nebula.

Above center you'll notice dark spots. These spots are called Thackeray's globules - Bok globules discovered by South African astronomer David Thackeray - and are dense clouds of dust one or two light years across and are usually associated with star forming (HII) regions.