The main target from my weekend at the Cherry Springs Star Party -- LDN 1262!
I came across this nebula when I was looking for target inspiration on AstroBin. When I'm under dark skies, I try to go after objects that are difficult or impossible to image from home under heavy light pollution. Dark nebulae are a whole class of target that never turn out as well when attempted under light pollution due to the fact that they don't glow much themselves, and you rely on how the dark nebulae stands out from the even dimmer background. They also have a lot of yellow coloring that gets blocked by light pollution filters, so you end up with dark blobs but no definition or character.
LDN is the Lynds Dark Nebula catalog, which contains some 1,802 of those wispy dust clouds, cataloged in 1962 using photographs from the Schmidt camera telescope at the Palomar Observatory . Dark nebulae are typically made up of molecular gas and dust that absorbs light that would otherwise pass through. The dark clouds contain a number of organic compounds in microscopic dust particles, often coated with light-absorbing frozen carbon monoxide and nitrogen. Dark nebulae stretch across the galactic plane, and the constellation Cepheus, which is home to LDN 1262, lies right along the Milky Way, poking up (or down) out of the plane.
I'm pretty happy with how it came out!
It's mentioned in this NPR article about the star party, where I got interviewed
https://www.npr.org/2023/06/24/1183490359/astronomy-light-pollution-star-party-astrophotography
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