Barnard 72, The Snake

[HiloDon]

Barnard 72, The Snake, is a dark nebula in Ophiuchus.  The dark nebulae were first photographed by Edwin Emerson Baarnard and he catalogued them in a 1919 paper, "On the Dark Markings of the Sky with a Catalogue of 182 Such Objects".  The Snake is so distinctive because it lies in the foreground of a rich star field near the plane of the Milky Way Galaxy.  This image was taken with a CPC1100HD at F2 (Hyperstar) and a SX Ultrastar C camera.  3 subs of 30 seconds.  Live view with no post processing using Paul Shears' Starlight Live software.  Image was taken on June 2nd, 2017.  Also in the image are B68, B69, B70 and B74.