High-dynamic-range column density map of the cloud A, derived using a combination of MIR and NIR data. The green circle shows the largest ellipse from the Simon et al. (2006) catalog in the region. The white box outlines the region which was used alongside with the A_V = 7 mag contour to define the region that is included in the analyses presented in Sect. 4. The contours are drawn at A_V =  [7,40]  mag. The scale bar shows the physical scale assuming the distance as given in Table 1.