Barnard 105/LDN 506 is a small, dark nebula less than one minute of arc across located one degree southwest of M 11 in Scutum. I find virtually nothing on it. A general estimate of the typical distance to Scutum dark nebula is about 650 light-years. I have no idea if that is accurate in this case. The bright star on the southwest edge is BD -7 4710 a 9th magnitude star. To the west (right) of Barnard 105 is the very small, 7 second of arc, blue planetary nebula PK 026-02.1 (Pe 1-16). A 1984 paper puts its distance at 1,200 parsecs (3,900 light-years) http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-iarticle_query?1984A%26AS...55..253M&data_type=PDF_HIGH&whole_paper=YES&type=PRINTER&filetype=.pdf . I couldn't find a more recent distance estimate. It seems to contain two white stars neither at the center. They likely mask the true central star. I hadn't realized it was in the frame until I processed the image and wondered why that blue "star" was a blob far larger than it should have been. A check of SIMBAD turned up it was a planetary nebula.
It is located just about 5 minutes of arc north of the center of the Geostationary Satellite Belt. Thus put dozens of satellite trails running horizontally though the image plus one polar satellite trail that was very bright through the image. With only 2 subs for each color, they had to be removed manually in Photoshop. Not a fun task with several dozen to remove. Some very faint ones remain but you have to look very carefully to find them. After the work to remove the major ones over several hours I just gave up on the faintest ones.
According to RegiStar there are 27,223 clearly identifiable stars in the image in case you were wondering.
14" LX200R @ f/10, L=6x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME | 
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| Barnard 122 and 123 are a pair of dark nebulae in northeastern Scutum. They are also known as LDN 545 and 546 respectively. They are quite obvious when seen against the very dense Milky Way. I wonder how visible they'd be seen against a typical starfield. Both are rated as level 5 out of 6 for darkness. Both have stars seen apparently in front of the nebulae with 122 being the larger. To me, 123 on the left isn't nearly as dark as 122 but it may be due to the faint stars seen across 123. Are these stars seen through the cloud or are they in front of it? Maybe a bit of both. I found nothing to say about this. Still, they appear no redder than the rest of the stars so likely are mostly in front of the nebula.
Due to cloud issues, I was able to only use half the normal luminance data I normally use. I'd likely have picked up even more faint stars with my normal 4 luminance frames. Less data may be what this one needed.
This image is reproduced at 1.5" per pixel rather than my usual 1" per pixel.
14" LX200R @ f/10, L=2x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME | 
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| These two Barnard dark nebulae are located in southwestern Aquila. Barnard 127/LDN 544 is much denser, therefore darker than Barnard 129/LDN 549 to the northeast. Though some sources list both as being of density 5 on a 1 to 6 scale with 6 being the greatest density. There are small nodules in Barnard 129 that might qualify but considered in its entirety it is not as dark as Barnard 127. They are the densest parts of a much larger dust cloud that covers much of my image as shown by the reddened stars that contrast with the dust free regions. Between the two is another region that is denser than many of Barnard's nebulae. This middle cloud is listed at SIMBAD as [DB2002b] G29.32-4.73. The cloud east of Barnard 127 isn't listed in SIMBAD that I found. Barnard 129's southeastern section is the darkest. This part carries the separate designation TGU H292.
This image is reproduced at 1.5" per pixel rather than my usual 1" per pixel.
14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10' STL-11000XM | 
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| Barnard 132 is a long but thin dark nebula in southern Aquila some say looks like a tadpole. I don't see it, a slug maybe but not a tadpole. At the very top of the image is the much smaller Barnard 328 both are rather sharply defined and rated as a 6 in opacity, the highest level. I was unable to find much on either of these.
Unfortunately, I didn't realize Barnard 328 was in the image or I'd have moved the center up a bit to better catch it. Like many of my September images, this one was plagued by smoke and lake haze that played havoc with color balance. Seeing went downhill causing stars to be larger in red than blue or green giving most stars a red halo even if blue. The smoke and haze eliminated a lot of the blue and some green as well. I think I have the color balance fairly accurate after a lot of work.
Both of these dark nebulae appear they would stand out well visually but I've got no log record of ever having looked for them before.
This image is reproduced at 1.5" per pixel rather than my usual 1" per pixel.
14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME | 
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| Barnard 139 is a very red dark nebula in Aquila. I couldn't find a reliable distance. One paper did assign it a distance of 600 parsecs but that was an "Assumed value" used for analyzing their data. That would translate into an "assumed" 2,000 light-years.
While I didn't realize it at the time I also caught the planetary nebula NGC 6778/6785 near the bottom of the frame. It's a rather unusual looking planetary. That's because it is "disrupted". It has a binary central star (not seen in my image) that creates two collimated outflows that are thought to be the cause of the disruption. You can read all about it at http://arxiv.org/pdf/1201.2042v1.pdf . The distance to it is very uncertain as I found two papers saying it was between 1 and 3.7 or 1 and 4 kpc which would be 3,300 to 13,000 light-years.
The planetary was discovered by John Herschel on May 21, 1825 getting the NGC 6785 designation. Later Albert Marth recorded it on June 25, 1863 as did Edward Pickering in September 1882 getting the NGC 6778 designation.
I also caught the object known as IC 1298 which is listed as an open star cluster. But it consists of only 4 or 5 stars. Dreyer's description is very small cluster then it mentions NGC 6788 3 minutes east. SIMBAD returns "Not found in database." I guess that means they consider it nonexistent. WEBDA doesn't have it in their database of open clusters either. I've marked it anyway on the annotated image. It was discovered by Guillaume Bigourdan on July 30, 1889. At best it is likely just an asterism.
Several galaxies are seen through all the obstructing dust. I've marked the two most obvious ones. No galaxies in the field are noted at NED or SIMBAD. They are obviously reddened due to scattering of their blue light by the obscuring dust. There's a third object I noticed that is not obviously reddened at the bottom center of the image. It is noted with a question mark. I don't know if it is a galaxy that escaped the reddening of the others due to a hole in the dust or is so blue the reddening only turned it white or it is something else like a planetary nebula. I'm not fond of the galaxy idea as I see no hint of a core region seen in the other field galaxies. Neither NED nor SIMBAD show anything at its position which is about 19h 18m 00.5S -1d 36' 45". It's not in the published listings of planetary candidates. There's an unpublished list I have no access to nor did anyone I contacted about this. Right now the area is too near the sun for imaging. It will be late spring before it is high enough in my sky to try and get a higher resolution image of it. It is faintly but clearly seen in the POSS 1 and 2 images but not with enough resolution to tell much about it. I don't have an OIII filter. That might help tell if it is a planetary. That it is rather neutral in color bothers me. Galaxies should be red and most planetaries are either red or blue. Only some reflection nebulae are neutral and those are rare. Another possibility is it is just a tight grouping of faint unresolved stars. Lots of possibilities but no answers as yet. If anyone knows anything about what it is please let me know.
14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10' STL-11000XM, Paramount ME Related Designations for BARNARD139NGC 6778, NGC 6785, 2MASS J19182495-0135474, IRAS 19158-0141, 87GB[BWE91] 1915-0141, NVSS J191825-013546, PN G034.5-06.7, IC 1298, BARNARD139, NGC6778, IC1298, | 
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| Barnard 162 is another dark nebula Barnard recorded seen against in the star cluster and nebula known as IC 1396. It's listed position is about 2.5 minutes west of the vertical dark lane with a dark blob at the bottom that is the densest part. There's only a slight dimming where it is said to be located. The dark nebula to the west is DOBASHI 3176 that is also seen on my shot of Barnard 160. There seems to be a faint connection between the two. Both images were taken through severe smoke and haze that really tore up the color balance. Getting the stars right turned the background bright blue. Trying to get the stars and nebula right required stars and nebula to be separated separately. Still getting the nebula the same for both images didn't happen. I need to redo these without the smoke and haze from fires.
This image is reproduced at 1.5" per pixel rather than my usual 1" per pixel.
14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME | 
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| Barnard 352 is an interesting dark nebula that makes for a poor Hudson's Bay in the North American Nebula near Deneb in Cygnus. Actually, it lies north of the main H alpha portion of the North American Nebula in a region that has both some H alpha and some reflection nebula components. Taken through rather nasty clouds my color data is rather suspect, especially the blue which may be too weak giving more red to the image than it should. Being about 20 minutes across its long diameter it is a good visual target. It shows surprisingly well in my 10" f/5 at 50 power even without any type of nebula filter though the OIII does help it some. I've been unable to find a distance for it. It is likely closer than the North American Nebula complex that it partly obscures. That, however, has so many different distance estimates it made my head spin. Most fell between 1500 and 2200 light-years. So the dark nebula must be closer than whatever distance you pick for NGC 7000/North American Nebula. That nebula is far too large for my system so I settled for a poor excuse for Hudson's Bay instead as it did fit my field.
This image is reproduced at 1.5" per pixel rather than my usual 1" per pixel.
14" LX200R @ f/10, L-4x10' RGB=2x10, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME | 
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| Barnard 362 is a dark nebula located in northeastern Cygnus about 2 degrees northeast of M39. Like many of Barnard's nebulae, it isn't totally opaque throughout. It has nodules that are quite dense embedded in a far less dense cloud. While LDN 1014 at the bottom of my image is a single dense core much like a Bok Globule though I don't see it described as being one. Though a paper on Barnard 362 says it is a Bok Globule. I found one paper ( http://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/pdf/2011/12/aa16438-11.pdf ) claiming to have better determined the distance to LDN 1014. Their value is 258 pc +/- 50 pc (841 light-years +/- 163 light-years). This paper indicates it considers Barnard 362 to be likely at about the same distance though some data indicated it was about 50 light-years closer they consider that due to two outliers that when removed results in a similar distance.
Another paper on LDN 1014 says they have identified three T Tauri stars that formed from the progenitor cloud that formed LBN 1014. All three are easily found in my image using the finder chart in the paper. http://pasj.oxfordjournals.org/content/58/5/L41.full.pdf+html
It appears this nebula is far better studied than is Barnard 362 as SIMBAD has 10 references to Barnard 362 and 69 to LDN 1014! I started out to image Barnard 362, saw a dark cloud south of it that I barely included. It turns out to have been the more interesting object. Another reason I like a large chip to catch these serendipitous occasions.
This image is reproduced at 1.5" per pixel rather than my usual 1" per pixel.
14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10, STL-11000XM, Paramount ME | 
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| Barnard's Star The Movie Now 11 Years in the Making
This is my annual update of Barnard's Star's annual motion through space at about 10.3 arcseconds per year. The images were all taken in the summer, usually July but not on the exact same date though the difference is barely noticeable. Seeing differences are a different story. So is transparency. Some nights were simply better, by far than others. Also when I started it wasn't with a movie in mind so exposure times varied. The image for this year, taken on July 16, 2017, was the best night of the 11 nights and it shows. Both seeing and transparency were much better than any of the other 11 nights. In fact, I toned down the image quite a bit (about 50%) and it is still deeper and sharper than the other nights. The exposure times below are for 2017, I didn't look up the others. Barnard's Star is the bright orange star in the center. It is actually a tiny red dwarf only 0.35% as bright as our sun (including infra red -- it's only 0.04% as bright in visible light) that only appears bright because it is only because it is just under 6 light-years from us. It is getting closer and will eventually be closer than Proxima Centauri is today but that's centuries in the future. Even then it will still be too dim to see without a good pair of binoculars if you know right where to look.
I normally use my astronomy club's website for the animated GIF image but I was unable to do so for some reason. Instead, this year's image is in a public Dropbox account. This isn't my site but one a book publisher allows me to use. As I have no control it may vanish at any time. Thus I recommend you save this rather than relying on the link forever.
The odd galaxy at the bottom of the image is CGCG 056-003/PGC 061178 at 360 million light-years. Note the faint blue halo around it. I didn't find much on it unfortunately.
14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME
Link to the 11-year animated GIF
https://www.dropbox.com/s/isgywiu85sznweh/BS2007-17.gif?dl=0
Rick | 
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| BERKELEY 23 is an open cluster between the feet of Gemini. I found two schools of thought on it. WEBDA says it is 22,550 light-years from us, 800 million years old and reddened by 0.4 magnitudes. A paper on it doesn't give its distance from us but only from the core of the galaxy. They give that distance as 43 to 46 thousand light-years. It goes on to say it is 1,600 to 2,000 light-years above the plane of the galaxy. The paper gives an age of 1.1 to 1.3 billion years for the cluster.
The cluster is about opposite the core of the galaxy so given we are about 25,000 light-years out and WEBDA puts it 22,550 light-years from us that would make it about 45,000 light-years out from the core allowing a bit for the alignment not being perfect. A pretty good agreement with the paper. The problem comes with its age which the paper puts at 300 million to 500 million years older than WEBDA's estimate. The paper admits they had a hard time separating true cluster member from field stars. I'd assume whatever source WEBDA used had the same issue. How each dealt with it may have something to do with the difference. Also, I didn't find any reddening estimate for the paper. From their methods used I doubt that they needed to estimate that for their age determination. In any case, it is a middle age cluster as many are already disrupted by even the time of the earlier age estimate. But being so far out it wouldn't be subject to strong tidal forces. It likely can survive several billion years more unless it makes close passed by the galaxy's core.
Being seen through the distant Milky Way, dust and gas limit the galaxies in the field. Few studies are made of galaxies in this area. Still with only 0.4 magnitudes of reddening distant galaxies are visible in the image. All are from the 2-micron survey which can see through our galaxies dust and gas. Only galaxies rich in the IR wavelengths of the 2-micron survey were picked up. None had redshift values so normally I'd not even annotate them but there were so few I decided to do so anyway, including their long positional names as none overlapped. Many more are seen in the image. They apparently don't have the required IR emission to make the 2-micron survey and no others were listed at NED covering the area.
The night this was taken was so cold when I turned on the camera it reported the chip was already at -39C! I set cooling for -45C and turned off the unneeded fan. Cooling power was never more than 5%. I was tempted to see what the camera did at say -75C but not having and darks for that temperature I didn't try it.
14" LX200R @ f/10, L=4x10' RGB=2x10', STL-11000XM, Paramount ME | 
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