Monoceros: The Dark Shark and Frens

This image centres on the Dark Shark Nebula in Cepheus with the wider view capturing the surrounding dark dust. It is made up of dark dust faintly illuminated by the surrounding stars. Dark dust clouds are very difficult to image thanks to being so delicately illuminated sometimes only noticeable as areas where stars are obscured.

These dark nebulae are catalogued in the Lynd’s Catalogue of Dark Nebula and hence have a unique LDN designation. The central dark shark is designated LDN 1235, the billowing cloud above and to the left of the shark is LDN 1251. Below we have a ghostly apparition, B 175 which looks like a ghostly Dodo.

This image was shot from dark skies using a wide field camera lens and DSLR on a Star Tracker. 6 hours of the best 90 second exposures were used, out of approximately 8 hours shot.

Photographer: Ronan Hunt
Full Resolution: 3304x4956 pix, 1/1 Edition Jpeg
Image Credit: Ronan Hunt