The constellation Taurus is famous among astrophotographers for its dark clouds and reflection nebulae. The Pleiades are of course the most important representatives. A young, open cluster of stars full of blue nebulae, surrounded by cosmic dust. A little off the Pleiades, there is much more to discover. The region around VDB 27, which resembles a rabbit, impresses with a variety of structures and colours in yellow, blue and brown. These are the birthplaces of new stars in the huge Taurus Molecular Cloud.

Stars are formed on the cosmic scene, among them the very young star RY Tauri, who is to the far right of the picture. In fact, RY Tauri is a pre-main sequence star embedded in its birth cloud of gas and dust. The variable star is still relatively cool and in the late stages of gravitational collapse. It will soon become a stable, low-mass main sequence star, a stage of star development that our sun reached about 4.5 billion years ago. Another pre-main sequence star is V1023 Tauri, which is embedded in its yellowish dust cloud above the blue reflection nebula Ced 30.