My Astrophotography – Barnard 168 (Black Cigar)

Barnard 39

  • Barnard 168 is a long, dark, snake‑like dust cloud in Cygnus, famous for containing the Cocoon Nebula (IC 5146) at its eastern end.
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  • It is one of the most striking dark nebula “lanes” in the northern Milky Way.
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  • The Cocoon Nebula (IC 5146) is an active star‑forming region associated with the young open cluster Collinder 470 ~ contains an open cluster of 20 stars – see the annotated version.

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  • Object Name
    B168

  • Object Type
    Dark Nebula

  • Constellation
    Cygnus

  • Magnitude
    n/a

  • Distance
    2,700 ly

  • Annotated

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Equipment

Telescope:

Mount:

Accessories:

Sky-Watcher Esprint 80ED Triplet

Sky-Watcher AZ-EQ6 GT

ZWO ASIair Plus / PixInsight

Camera:

Guiding:

Filter:

ZWO ASI2600MC Pro cooling

ZWO ASI1200MM

2″ Optolong eNchance

Bortle Scale: Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire (Bortle 6.6)


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Integration

  • Date:
  • Moonlit:
  • Total:

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Constellation :- Cygnus (The Swan)

Object :-

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Object :-

Other name :-

Type :-

Magnitude :

Distance :-

Constellation :-

Right Ascension :-

Declination :-

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B168

LDN 1610 / Black Cigar

Dark Nebula

n/a

2,700 light years / 23 light years across

Mon (Monoceros / The Unicorn)

06h 38m 27s

+10° 19′ 12″

Enlarge on click the map.

(Click the map above for a large view.)

Abbreviation:  Cyg
English Name:  The Swan
Genitive: Deneb
Hemisphere: Northern Hemisphere
Location: Between the constellations of Cephus and Draco.
Visible between latitudes:  +90 and -40 degrees
Best season: Autumn
Seen in three seasons: Summer, Autumn & Winter
Best seen in:  August (map) and September (map)
Seen between: May and November
Right Ascension (RA): 21 hour
Declination (DEC): +40 degrees
Area (square degrees):  804 (16th)

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Facts about B168

  • Distance from Earth:
    1,300 light‑years (same as IC 5146), so the dark lane of Barnard 168 spans the sky about four Moon‑widths end‑to‑end.
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  • A long, narrow, sinuous dust lane
    Often called the “Cocoon Nebula dark lane.”
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  • Barnard 168
    This makes B168 a large, filamentary molecular cloud, similar in nature to B68 but stretched into a long lane rather than a compact Bok globule.
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  • In deep images, it looks like a smoke trail leading directly into the glowing Cocoon Nebula.
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