Infrared/visible crossfade of the Monoceros R2 star-forming region

This video fades back and forth between views of the stellar nursery Monoceros R2 in visible and infrared light. The visible-light view was created from digitised photographs through red and blue filters forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2 (DSS) and the new infrared view comes from the VISTA telescope at Paranal. In the infrared, the thick, rich, dust clouds that cover much of the image become nearly transparent and a whole host of young stars and associated outflows become apparent.