The Mouth of The Dark Shark (Lilith Gaither)

The Mouth of The Dark Shark

A beautiful section of dust within the Cepheus Molecular Cloud Complex some 1020 light years from us. Featured in this image of the region are dark nebula LDN 1235, reflection nebula VdB 150, some of the nebulous region LBN 546, and bright double star HIP 109659. The region of the Dark Shark is likely made visible through extended red emission (ERE) dust luminescence processes, in which high-energy radiation ionizes the hydrogen and amorphous carbon in regions of interstellar dust at high galactic latitudes.

VdB 150, located at the top right, is a blue reflection nebula illuminated bright star HIP 109389, of spectral type B8IV. This indicates a relatively cool, blue, sub-giant star. Little information is available about this region.

LDN 1235, a dark nebula of opacity 6.00 (top left), is a very prominent feature at the head of the shark. Lynd's opacity scale ranges from 1-6, with 1 at the least opaque and 6 at the most opaque. This makes this one of the highest possible opacity nebulae in the sky. As with most dark nebulae, very little information can be found on this object.

LBN 546, while hard to tell apart from the normal layer of dust in this image, is a 5'x10' region of faint reflection nebulosity along the right edge of the image. About half of the region is in frame.

Double HIP 109659 consists of a cool, yellow giant of type G8III (HIP 109659A) and a hot, blue main sequence star of type A3V (HIP 109659B). A 2018 parallax measurement found it to be around 720 light years from us, 300 ly closer than the molecular clouds behind it.

This target has fascinated me for quite some time, and I'm glad to have finally imaged it for myself.

Cheers & CS,

Lilith

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Status	Advanced success
Started	...
Astrometry.net job	2982183
PixInsight job	RW9M5B9K1LAW3D0S4180NUHPD2WDNAL0
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

RA (center)	22h12m46s.366
RA (top/left)	22h16m37s.528
RA (top/right)	22h08m56s.417
RA (bottom/right)	22h08m58s.798
RA (bottom/left)	22h16m31s.346

Dec (center)	+73°16′06″.99
Dec (top/left)	+73°26′52″.46
Dec (top/right)	+73°27′12″.38
Dec (bottom/right)	+73°05′02″.90
Dec (bottom/left)	+73°04′46″.49

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