Home > astrophotography > Dark Nebula B334, 336-7 in Aquila

Dark Nebula B334, 336-7 in Aquila

September 3rd, 2009

Dark nebula is a nebula in the galaxy which absorbs the light from the background. There are two types of them in general – one can be seen because they block the light of the emission nebulas in the background. One of the most spectalular of them is Horsehead nebula in Orion. The others block the light which comes from the stars behind them and those are best seen where the density of the stars is the highest – in the Milky Way. Dark nebulas consist of cold materia in the space, which is not hot enough to transmit the light.

In the night from 23th to 24th August I have gone to Bohor to take some photos of Elephant’s trunk, but I had to end taking photos about at midnight because the object passed the meridian and I couldn’t track it anymore. I had to make quick decision which object to capture the rest of the night and I choose the dark nebulas B334, 336-7 in Aquila, near Altair. I had no internet and I hadn’t a clue how this nebula looks like. Some of dark nebulas are really breath-taking and impressive (who doesn’t know Horsehead). Well, mine isn’t so spectacular, but I am pretty satisfied with the result. The next day I have checked the google image search for this nebula and found nothing, which means that I am one of the first who decided to “burn” his CMOS sensor on this object for some hours :) After all, that counts as well …

Here you go:

Dark Nebulas B334, B336, B337 @ photo: Primož Cigler

Dark Nebulas B334, B336, B337 @ photo: Primož Cigler

Some technical data about the exposure, equipment and so on:

Object: B334
Date and Location: 23. 8. 2009, Oslica, Bohor
Exposition: 26 x 5min
Camera: Canon 350D, Baader mod., ISO 800, RAW
Optics: Orion Optics Europa 20cm f/4.5
Mount: Vixen GP-DX SS2K
Autoguiding: SW 80/400 with QHY5
Processed in: Iris, Ps

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  1. September 10th, 2009 at 00:12 | #1

    how were you able to point your telescope to this nebula? It’s so faint, I am sure you were not able to see it on a single shot. Did you just orient your telescope using nearby bright stars and hope that you got nebula in your field of view?

    It amazes me how many stars out there, one can not realize it when looks at the sky with naked eye, but Milky Way photos are just full of stars.

  2. admin
    September 10th, 2009 at 06:31 | #2

    I’ve got GoTo function on my telescope drive system, so I have just entered the coordinates from the Cartes du Ciel and telescope moved there automatically. Then I made an exposure and hoped that nebula is in the field, and fortunately it was.
    It was clearly seen on a single photo, that was not a problem.

  3. September 13th, 2009 at 04:38 | #3

    Thanks for explanation, once again — great photo! Sky is dark and stars are small points as it should be.

  4. January 15th, 2010 at 23:22 | #4

    Great photo…and well done in boldly going where no google images have gone b4 :)

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