The Seahorse Nebula

A seahorse seems to swim through the night. Its long, sinuous silhouette stands out black against a field of stars, some 1,200 light-years away, in the constellation of Cepheus.

It is not a hole in the sky, but a cloud of cold dust so dense that it snuffs out the light of the stars behind it: a dark nebula. It is their absence that draws the animal. And that darkness is not empty: within it, several denser cores of gas are cradles where stars are beginning to form.

This image is only a first attempt, exposed for little more than two hours: a test to check the alignment of the telescope and camera. The seahorse deserves better, and I fully intend to come back to it with much more exposure time.