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Rotten Fish Nebula

LDN 1251

Telescope : Takahashi E180

Camera : ZWO ASI 2400MC

Mount : Paramount MX

Focal length : 500mm

Fov : 4.13° x 2.75°

Image Scale : 2.45 arcsec/pixel

Observatory : RoboScopes

Filters: none

OSC : 268 x 5mins

Integration: 22h20m

RA: 22h33m54s

Dec : +75°1507

In the gas and dust rich constellation, Cepheus lies a rotten fish. The dark nebula, LDN 1251, from the Lynds Dark Nebulae catalog resembles a fish in an advanced state of decay, hence it’s nickname, The Rotten Fish Nebula! Sometimes the dust can be so thick that it hides the light from the stars behind them and appear as dark patches in a night sky when imaged from a telescope. It can be quite a challenge to take out all the details from these dark dust clouds. LDN 1251 is quite close to us, at around 1,000 light years and is part of a much large complex of bright and dark nebulae in this region of the sky, Can you resolve the small galaxy peering through the dust clouds just above and to the right of the rotten fish tail ??

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