RCW 71 or Gum 46 is a rather small HII patch in the sky located at the border of the Coalsack Dark Nebula. Since the Coalsack Dark Nebula is much closer, roughly at 650 light years, its interstellar dust and gas block the distance light an produce a reddened effect. The glowing core of RCW71 spans over 4 light years, and its is powered by the intense ultraviolet radiation of a hot and massive 09.5V star HD311999. The ionized star belongs to infrared open cluster [DBS2003] 80. Infrared observations have revealed that the nebula is actually surrounded by a massive, faint emission ring extending up to 6 arc minutes across.