Dark Neb Scorpius

[richardo]

Hi all,
the dismal nights have cleared here but alas the
moon is with us.:doh:
This object has no designation, it is only known as a
'dark nebula', believe it or not.
Have done a small search but can't find any info on it
other than what I've put down in it's description.
First time I've ever imaged something with no name...
Go figure!

Last night I got some colour down, but the blue frames
were taken through high cloud so I feel there could be
more reflection about the blue stars.

Still it's an interesting subject nestled in our galaxies
central star region.

link can be found on my front page....
http://www.baytop-observatory.com/

If you can find any designation I would be very
interested, seems strange to me.:screwy:

All the best
Rich:thumbsup:

[strongmanmike]

Nice work Richard very interesting image.

That looks like that dark doodad in Scorpio, bit like the elephants trunk in the northern hemisphere... Hmmm? "Dark Doodad" huh? not sure that's it's official designation :P

Mike

[glenc]

That is a great image Rich. :thumbsup:

The object is called vdBH73.
The catalogue can be found here:
http://webviz.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/VizieR?-meta.foot&-source=VII/218

[iceman]

Wow Rich, what a lovely image. Looks like a large image scale!

The image background appears to have quite a bit of red/magenta, that's the only flaw I can find in a beautiful image.

[Garyh]

Excellent result Rich..beautiful!
Its called the dark Tower neb as I remember looking at a image of it last year thinking that will make a interesting target!
can`t find any other info on it but!
nice work and thanks for reminding me of it again! :)

opps didn`t see Glens reference too it..shall have a look!
cheers Gary

[glenc]

Paul has a picture of it at:
http://www.skylab.com.au/pmsa/The%20Dark%20Tower.html
and there is a B&W image at:
http://www.celestialimage.com/page211.html

[richardo]

Hola Migel,
good to hear from you.
Thanks for the comments!
I sort of thought it looks like a White pointer hacking through a school of fish... what'ya think ?
Definitely in the same category as that cometary remnant that looks like a giant slug eating stars.... excuse my non astronomical descriptions & naming.. :D



Sort of looked at the catalogue, but vdBH73 isn't located at the correct Ra.
Don't think this is the one.




Thanks Ice man;),
I think these areas in star fields as dense as this, there are lots of dust and emission represented.
The few Wide field images I've seen on this object show emission radiating out from the dark column's HII ridges/ edges.
My G2v calibration hasn't let me down so far with my ratios but as I mentioned, I would have liked to have had pure skies but my blue frames suffered a little I think.
Would have liked much more colour data but as usual time and the moon have played its part.



Cheers Gaz,
just saw the the couple of images Glen put links to and Dark Column it is then I guess...
Just wish some one would name the blessed thing and be done with it.
I think "dark Shark Nebula" sounds better though.



Thanks Glen.

And thanks all for taking a look and commenting.

All the best
Rich

[glenc]

The catalogue gives:
vdBH 73a, RA2000 16 46.4, dec -41 14, Bright, 1.6’ blue plate diam, 0.3’ red plate diam
The catalogue is attached as an Excel file.

[jase]

Nice work Rich. A fascinating target in which you've acquired and processed well. I'd say your colour balance is pretty spot on. This region is void of blue hues due to interstellar reddening along the galactic plane. A visual treat - well done.

[Ric]

Hi Rich, a great looking image.

I like the way it pierces through the rich starfield.

Cheers

[richardo]

Hi Glen,
thanks for taking the time and effort.
I found a Harvard piece on this, VDBH, (Van Den Berg & Hurst) these guys undertook a survey on southern stars embedded in nebulosity. This designation is for one of these stars.
Here's a link to what I found.
http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/1996A%26AS..115..517R/0000517.000.html

But unfortunately, there is still no designation for the dark neb, this is really weird!



Thanks Jase:thumbsup:,
Been quite poor conditions since November, taking this image was no exception, guiding at times was a bit erratic.
But was happy to be out at least.
Nice to be at the computer again going through the motions with an image at the end.



Thanks Ric,
Aaahh, like a... 'shark' through a fish school:D

Thanks again guys
Rich;)

[glenc]

The dark cloud is HMSTG895 or DCld 343.0+2.8 according to Desktop Universe.
See:A catalogue of southern dark clouds
Hartley M., Manchester R.N., Smith R.M., Tritton S.B., Goss W.M.
http://webviz.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/VizieR?-meta.foot&-source=VII/191

This area also includes Gum55, RCW113, BBW31100

[richardo]

Thanks Glenn for time and effort,
this is it!:thumbsup:

Cheers
rich

[winensky]

Beautiful image and thanks glenc for the identification.

Kind regards
Matt