Helping Hand in Cassiopeia

Drifting near the plane of our Milky Way galaxy these dusty molecular clouds seem to extend a helping hand on a cosmic scale.

Part of a local complex of star-forming interstellar clouds they include LDN 1358, LDN 1357, and LDN 1355 from American astronomer Beverly Lynds’ 1962 Catalog of Dark Nebulae.

Presenting a challenging target for Astrophotography, the obscuring dark nebulae are nearly 3,000 light-years away, toward rich starfields in the northern constellation Cassiopeia.

At that distance, this deep, telescopic field of view would span about 80 light-years.