X-ray map of W50 in Galactic coordinates with the extinction map (in red) superposed. The extinction is estimated from the Bayestar 19 3D maps Green et al. (2019) up to a distance of 3 kpc from the Sun, i.e., conservatively in the foreground to W50. The extinction (A_V) values range between ∼ 5 and ∼ 10 in regions overlapping with the central quasi-spherical part of W50. This apparently accidental projection of the absorbing dust/gas onto W50 leads to significant suppression of the soft X-ray flux in the affected areas.