It is also a carbon star, with large amounts of carbon molecules in its outer layers that absorb blue and violet light, giving the star a deep reddish color. Eventually it will shed its outer layers and create a planetary nebula, while the core becomes a white dwarf star that is no longer fusing atoms and slowly cools over trillions of years.

The background contains an large number of barely visible and very distant galaxy that are highlighted with plate-solving the image.

There is also an interesting video highlighting the differences in sizes among stars, and this one includes La Superba to give an interesting view of the scale of it.