 Despite being opaque at visible-light wavelengths, use of the Very Large Telescope at Cerro Paranal has revealed the presence of about 3,700 blocked background Milky Way stars, some 1,000 of which are visible at infrared wavelengths.Careful measurements of the degree of obscuration resulted in a finely sampled and accurate mapping of the dust distribution inside the cloud.Observations obtained with Herschel Space Observatory were able to constrain the distribution of the dust component and its temperature even more.