Scientists call these nebulae “cometary globules”, because of gaseous cloud shapes resemble comets (only much, much greater), and similarly to comets, such nebulae are shaped by stellar wind. While shape of comets is created by regular stellar wind from our Sun, CG 4 was probably formed by supernova explosion, as it points to the location of supernova remnant in the constellation Vela.

The deep and detailed image of this very faint object was acquired by the CielAustral group of astrophotographers (Laurent Bourgon, Jean-Claude Canonne, Nicolas Outters, Philippe Bernhard and Didier Chaplain) from their observatory located at Obstech - Observatorio El Sauce in Chile. Image was acquired using G4-16000 camera on 50 cm CDK20 telescope. Total exposure time was almost 60 hours.