LDN 1235 - The Dark Shark, diving
An LRGB view of the Dark Shark in Cepheus. It's framed nose-down with its tail up to the top right, and two small reflection nebulae show blue along its flanks.
The object
LDN 1235 is a dark nebula in Cepheus, a few degrees from LDN 1251, the Rotten Fish. Cepheus apparently has a theme. Strictly speaking, LDN 1235 is only the eye. The whole body is LBN 535. The two small blue patches are vdB 149 and vdB 150, reflection nebulae lit by young stars inside the dust. They're about the only colour in a field that is otherwise brown on brown.
It's usually framed cruising level. Here it's nose-down, tail up to the top right, which is roughly what sharks do once they've spotted something.
Capture notes
Sixteen hours of luminance and four per colour channel, shot between May and July. With dust, the luminance does nearly all the work. The colour only has to separate brown from blue, and there isn't much blue to separate.
Processing
The colour stays mostly brown because the field is mostly brown. It's tempting to push the two blue patches until they glow, and once you do, the dust stops being the subject and turns into the backdrop.
