SUNSET: 
0
Photographer:
Daniel Stern
Location of Photo:
Rio Hurtado, Chile
Date/Time of photo:
September 2025
Equipment:
CDK17/L500/Moravian C5-100
Description:
LDN 1642 (also called MBM 20) is a rarely imaged, small dark cloud of gas and dust roughly 450 light-years away, high above the Milky Way’s main disk. It’s one of the few nearby high-latitude clouds where new stars are still forming. The cloud’s soft, wispy shape comes from starlight scattering off dust and a few young stars hidden inside. Its “comet-like” form may have been shaped by winds or shockwaves from the Orion region below, though astronomers are still studying that connection. Along its thinner edges, the dust clears just enough that distant galaxies—each a vast island of billions of stars—shine faintly through.
