Negev Desert, Israel

SBIG ST8300M, Astrodon filters: RGB E-Series GenII
LRGB Total 3:15 hours = L 120 min. (24x5 min.) + R,G,B 75 min (5x5 min. each filter)
Boren-Simon 2.8-8 CF (Carbon Fiber) OTA - http://www.powernewts.com
EQ6 mount, guided w/PHD and EQMOD
The FOV of this image is: 1 deg. 42.45 min X 1 deg. 15.295 min.

The blue nebula on the left (north) is van den Bergh 149 (RA 22 09 08.5 Dec +72 53 05), and that on the right side of the image (south) is van den Bergh 150 (RA 22 09 40.1 Dec +73 23 27). The dark nebula on the top (west) side of the image is LDN 1235, and it is likely an Extended Red Emission nebula (ERE - galactic dark nebulae at high latitudes that become visible through illumination by the interstellar radiation field). There are many even fainter wisps of dust that make up the sky background, which show well in this image. These small clouds are yet uncataloged.

I have decided to give it a name of my own - "The Israel Nebula" for the main dusty area's resemblance to the Map of Israel: starting with the Golan heights on the top right side of the image, down through the bay of Haifa, all the way through the Mediterranean beaches on the left of it, and ending in the Negev desert, where this image had actually been shot...

In 1966, Sidney Van Den Bergh produced his own catalog of bright nebula with embedded stars. It contains information for “all BD and CD stars north of -33 deg which are surrounded by reflection nebulosity visible on both the blue and red prints of the Palomar Sky Survey. The nearer reflection nebulae lie predominantly along Gould’s Belt, whereas the more distant ones are concentrated to the galactic plane. The data outline 13 associations of reflection nebulae, some of which coincide with known OB or T associations. Attention is drawn to the fact that most reflection nebulae are illuminated by the integrated light of the Milky Way. The integrated radiation will be more intense above and below the galactic plane then in the galactic plane where the nuclear bulge of the Galaxy and most of the disk are obscured by interstellar absorption.”

Ninth magnitude vdB 149 first appeared in scientific literature around 1957 during a search for cepheids in galactic clusters done by Sidney Van Den Berg. Later, in 1960, it was also picked up by Halton Arp and more formally in 1966 when Van Den Berg did his “Study of Reflection Nebulae” utilizing the Palomar Sky Survey plates. It is also the 159th reflection nebula corresponding to HD 224403 (GLON=116.6, GLAT=-00.22) is introduced by R. Racine in his study of stars in Reflection Nebulae in 1968 where photometric and spectroscopic observations were done for fifteen distinct regions.

However, 8.4 magnitude vdB 150 holds a much more colorful history, having been noted in 1918 by Annie Jump Cannon and Edward Pickering. Annie picked it up again in 1925 during the extended Henry Draper Catalog Study and again in 1949 in a commemorative work done with Walton Mayall. From there, it laid dormant until 1991 and 1995 when revisited again by the Astrographic Catalogue for spectral type, proper motion and position. It holds its place in basic data as HD 210806 — Star in Nebula.

Like the Van Den Bergh catalogs of bright nebula where curtains of gas and dust conjoin with stars, the Lynds Dark Nebula catalog was developed in much the same way – compiled from studies of the red and blue prints from the Palomar Sky Survey. “The range in declination is from +90 to -33 degrees. A cloud had to be visible on both the red and the blue photographs in order to be recorded. It is therefore very probable that the more tenuous clouds which may be transparent in the red are not included herein. Lynds states that it was often difficult to detect a cloud that absorbed less than 0.75 magnitudes. Many of the small dark nebulae termed `Bok Globules‘ are not included in this catalog because they are apparent as dark objects projected against the bright background of an emission nebulosity: only objects which, on the basis of stellar density fluctuations, indicated the presence of absorption are contained here.”

(ref. http://www.universetoday.com/14234/revealing-the-undiscovered-van-den-bergh-14950-and-lynds-dark-nebula-1235-by-tom-davis/)