Last year in late summer I started to image dark nebula from Barnard catalogue. And I felt in love with them quickly. Emission nebulae shapes are maybe more interesting, but this dust clouds that makes dark nebulae are more three-dimensional to me. They are not lit by nearby stars, or only a little, so part of them is not quite dark, but little bit lighter than blackness. And they are decorated with plethora of Milky Way stars – like for example Barnard 145.
This year near summer solstice I had a chance to open Barnard season with object number 145. This nebula is located in the middle of Cygnus constellation, next to Crescent nebula. There is no more deep sky object in this frame – only Barnard 145 and great number of stars. Many of them have a planetary system companion, so maybe someone observed the Sun in the time this image was exposed. Who knows. When you look into the sky, the sky also looks into you…
Image shot from my suburban backyard with TS130/910 refractor on EQ6 mount. Luminance is 99×3 minutes exposures with QHY163M camera. Color is 22×3 minutes exposures with QHY163C camera.
Large version here https://astrojolo.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/2017-06-19-B145.jpg
Clear skies!
