Celestial hemisphere:  Southern  ·  Constellation: Scorpius (Sco)
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B252, Jochen Maes
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B252, Jochen Maes

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Acquisition details

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Description

B252 is a dark nebula in the Scorpius constellation, an unknown distance from earth.

A common misconception about these dark nebulae (in general, not specifically this one) is that they're somehow empty voids of space. There's a B68 image taken by Hubble that makes its way across social media platforms every so often where people (incorrectly) make that claim. So what are we looking at then?

These dark regions in space are every bit as populated as the regions surrounding them. The only difference is that from our vantage point; there's some thick dust clouds in the line of sight blocking our view in visual wavelengths of light (in plain English, light that our human eyes can see). When scanning said regions with specialized instruments that operate at longer wavelengths (infrared and beyond), said regions become indistinguishable from their surroundings (as far as how densely populated they are).

Image acquisition details:

24x600" Luminance
18x600" Red
18x600" Green
18x600" Blue

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B252, Jochen Maes