The Dark Shark + Dr. RONALD BRECHER + L-QEF (L-Quad Enhance Filter)

The Dark Shark
Credit: Astrodoc Ron Brecher
Filters: Optolong L-QEF (L-Quad Enhance Filter)

 

 

This image shows the Dark Shark, a complex of several objects in Cepheus, located around 650 light years from us, and about 15 light years from snout to tail. The brownish portion is part of a large molecular cloud thought to be glowing dust powered by high-energy starlight. LDN 1235 is the dark spot in the shark’s head. vdB 149 and 150 are the two blue reflection nebulae at the top and bottom of the shark’s neck. Little spiral galaxy PGC67671 appears to sit behind the dorsal fin, but it is far in the background at around 58 million light years distance. Several other galaxies grace the field; I prepared an annotated image that identifies their locations.

This is one of the first imaghes acquired with the Sky-Watcher Esprit 70 EDX. Unlike the Esprit 80mm, this scope has an image circle that can cover a full-frame 35 mm sensor with pinpoint stars. The field of view is a whopping 4.5 x 3 degrees. Focus was stable over a 3 C temperature range (I focused only once, manually, at the start of a 4-hour imaging run). They will hopefully be available to buy later in 2025.

 

Tekkies:
Acquisition, focusing, and control of Paramount MX mount and other equipment with N.I.N.A. and TheSkyX. Unguided, manual focus. Equipment control with Primalucelab Eagle 4 Pro computer. All pre-processing and processing in PixInsight. Acquired from my SkyShed in Guelph. Acquired under average transparency and seeing and a first-quarter Moon on the night of July 23 – 30, 2025.

Sky-Watcher Esprit 70 EDX refractor, QHY367C Pro camera with Optolong L-Quad Enhance filter.

287 x 5m = 23hr 55m

Hope you like it.