Dark Shark Nebula

This is my first attempt at capturing a dark nebula, and the Dark Shark or Howling Wolf as it is sometimes called became my target of choice because of it's beautiful variation of colored stars and it's uncanny resemblance to a hungry shark. Known to be an incredibly difficult object to image I was needing moonless skies. This was imaged over 2 nights with a total intergration time of 7.5 hours through Red, Green & Blue filters This image shows the Dark Shark, a complex of several objects in Cepheus, located around 650 light years from us, and about 15 light years from snout to tail. The brownish portion is part of a large molecular cloud thought to be glowing dust powered by high-energy starlight. LDN 1235 is the dark spot in the shark’s head. vdB (Van den Bergh catalogue) 149 and 150 are the two blue reflection nebulae at the top and bottom of the shark’s neck. Both these beautiful reflection nebula shine with the color of very hot B8IV stars within these parts of the nebula.

Imaging details * Oct 2nd / 15th 2022 * Norfolk, UK (Bortle 6) * Telescope: Skywatcher Esprit ED100 * Camera: ZWO ASI 2600MM-PRO * Filter: ZWO RGB * Mount: Skywatcher EQ6R Pro * Guide: Altair 60mm; ZWO ASI 120MM Mini * Control: ASIAIPRo, ZWO EAF * Software: PixInsight, Photoshop * 50 x 180 seconds RGB Total integration time:7.5 hours