Dark Shark Nebula (Simon Wilson)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Cepheus (Cep) · Contains: 16 Cep · 24 Cep · HD208509 · HD210369 · HD210615 · HD210806 · HD210873 · HD211300 · HD211771 · LBN 535 · LBN 541 · LBN 546 · LDN 1235 · The star 16 Cep · The star 24 Cep · VdB149

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Dark Shark Nebula

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Dark Shark Nebula

Shark fishing!

Lurking in the deep space of the constellation of Cepheus we find the predator of the night sky, the Dark Shark Nebula. This one has long been on my wish list to photograph as it is a challenge to image and process. Six consecutive nights for a total of over 16 hours imaging time went into this capture. It's extremely faint and barely visible on the individual sub exposures. A 90% plus moon wasn't helping matters, although it was thankfully low in the sky.

This object belongs to a class of objects known as 'dark nebulae' which are composed of dark dust which is faintly illuminated by the neighbouring stars. Two blue reflection nebulae, Vdb 149 and 150 are also visible at the top and bottom of the shark's neck along with the galaxy PGC 67671 which is sitting behind the dorsal fin (although in reality is around 60 million light years away). The shark itself is 650 light years away and around 15 light years from snout to tail.

We're gonna need a bigger telescope!

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	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
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	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
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Star trails
Northern lights
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	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
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Amateur hosting facility
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Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	6130129
PixInsight job	KC6IWP1I41U1B5S88QFRCQEMPZ4XYFEA
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	22h03m56s.96
RA (top/left)	22h21m40s.73
RA (top/right)	21h53m16s.72
RA (bottom/right)	21h47m00s.41
RA (bottom/left)	22h13m20s.41

Dec (center)	+73°05′31″.4
Dec (top/left)	+73°26′48″.0
Dec (top/right)	+74°10′58″.3
Dec (bottom/right)	+72°38′46″.10
Dec (bottom/left)	+71°58′16″.1

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Dark Shark Nebula

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Dark Shark Nebula

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