Barnard 169 - feat. Darth Nuts, the Sith Squirrel (Timothy Martin)

Celestial hemisphere: Northern · Constellation: Cepheus (Cep) · Contains: 15 Cep · 22 Cep · 22 lam Cep · B169 · B170 · B171 · B173 · B174 · B368 · LBN 482 · LDN 1137 · LDN 1138 · LDN 1139 · LDN 1141 · LDN 1142 · LDN 1143 · LDN 1149 · LDN 1151 · LDN 1153 · LDN 1160 · LDN 1164 · LDN 1165 · LDN 1166 · LDN 1169 · Sh2-134 · The star λ Cep

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Barnard 169 - feat. Darth Nuts, the Sith Squirrel

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Barnard 169 - feat. Darth Nuts, the Sith Squirrel

B169 and its companions in Cepheus are dark dust clouds with a temperature as low as 10 degrees Kelvin, which means they are very, very cold. But this allows them to congeal in spots and kick off new star formation. So light-absorbing molecular clouds like this one are essential to the continuing evolution of our galaxy, and many others.

Hidden in (or between here and there) these darks clouds in Cepheus are a couple of interesting formations I can find little or no information about in the literature. At least one will be a new addition to my personal WTF catalog of objects that--at least to me--defy explanation. The first, WTF 4, I've dubbed "Darth Nuts, the Sith Squirrel" because it looks like one of those friendly rodents who has turned to the Dark Side and is now wielding a light saber:

The second looks like some kind of cosmic orange boomerang. It appears that it is Herbig Haro 354 IRS. That YSO has a stellar outflow of approximately 2.4 parsecs (more than 8 light years!):

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	8780807
PixInsight job	FVFVB9XUZ6E8WO5SKIWSWN75YSCS6M7P
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	TASK_LOG

RA (center)	22h02m00s.696
RA (top/left)	21h58m51s.935
RA (top/right)	22h13m49s.979
RA (bottom/right)	22h05m26s.299
RA (bottom/left)	21h50m15s.441

Dec (center)	+59°13′43″.47
Dec (top/left)	+57°46′22″.83
Dec (top/right)	+59°20′16″.45
Dec (bottom/right)	+60°40′48″.29
Dec (bottom/left)	+59°03′00″.56

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Barnard 169 - feat. Darth Nuts, the Sith Squirrel

Barnard 169 - feat. Darth Nuts, the Sith Squirrel

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Barnard 169 - feat. Darth Nuts, the Sith Squirrel

Barnard 169 - feat. Darth Nuts, the Sith Squirrel

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