- B 142 and B 143 Barnard's "E"
B 142 and B 143 are a pair of dark nebulas lying within the stream of the Summer Milky Way about 3 degrees north-west of Altair in the constellation Aquila. In my image, B 142 is the lower nebula while B 143 is the upper nebula. Combined, these objects have the common name "Barnard's E", due their rough resemblence to the letter. The upper part of the "E" (B 143) is more distinct than the lower part (B 142). The nebulas are named in honor of the American astronomer E. E. Barnard, a pioneer in astro-photography, who compiled a list of dark nebulas discovered in his photographs of the Milky Way (these nebulas are numbers 142 and 143 in his list).
I used 5-minute exposures in the red, green and blue spectral bands to bring out the myriad of tiny stars making up the Milky Way stream. The fact that these clouds of interstellar dust block the light from the backgound Milky Way stars allows us to see them. It is estimated that these nebulas lie at a distance of around 2000 LY. They cover an area in the sky about the size of the full moon (0.5 degrees).
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