In November of last year, I tried capturing a dark nebula I found to be quite tantalizing in its structure. I processed it back then with the minimal data I had captured, and it turned out horribly. The target came around again this year and I collected several more nights of data for a new total of 37 hours (after getting rid of the bad frames). I am happy with the result...for now
The target, made up of several Lynd's Dark Nebulae designations including
LDN 1448, 1451, 1455, and 1452, is quite faint since it is largely made up of chemicals known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). These chemicals are not very excitable and do not emit light; as a matter of fact, they solidly block it out. Here on Earth, PAHs are commonly referred to as soot and come about from burning coal, oil, gas, wood, garbage, and tobacco, things we generally don't consider good to burn. When found in giant nebulous clouds in interstellar space, often lightyears in size, these clouds of "dust" contribute to stellar and planet formation and several young stellar objects can be seen illuminating some of that dust in this image.
Well, that's enough of that:
LDN 1448 is located roughly 1 degree southwest of
NGC 1333 in the
Perseus molecular cloud, at a distance of about 800 light-years from us.
I hope you enjoy...
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