Barnard 344 in Cygnus

[Avdhoeven]

Barnard 344 is a dark nebula in the constellation of Cygnus. It’s located close to the star Sadr in the Gamma Cygni Nebula (RA: 20h18m57.4s DEC: +40º 40′ 01″). Barnard 344 is located on the bottom of the image. This is one of my favorite regions for astrophotography.

This region is very rich of dark and emission nebulae. On the image also VanDenBergh 130, a reflection nebula in this region, can be seen. It’s the circular cloudshape on the left center of the image. LBN234 is an emission nebula glowing with hydrogen and sulphur in the center of the image.

Barnard 344 was described by Barnard himself as: “Dusky spot, 7′ long; like an arrowhead, pointed SW; small star at NE end”.

This image is a combination of narrowband imagery with RGB images taken during a number of nights almost a decade ago already in 2013. I did a complete reprocessing of the luminosity image using newer software and with more computer power to get higher resolution. Also the colors were 'polished' to get a better balance.

In 2015 this image was an Apod, but I think with this processing it became quite a bit more detailed and nicer to see the details.

Telescope: TEC-140
Camera: QSI-583
Mount: Skywatcher NEQ-6
H-alpha: 6 x 1800 s (3nm astrodon)
SII: 3 x 1800 s (3nm astrodon)
OIII: 4 x 1800 s (3nm astrodon)
RGB: (4,4,4) x 600 s (astrodon TrueRGB)
Total exposure time: 8.5 hours

[scarp15]

Impressive and insightful image and description, cheers.

[simmo39]

Looks real good.