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The southern serpent

Vikas Chander, taken from Río Hurtado, Chile

This complex of dust snaking through the southern constellation Apus the Bird of Paradise is catalogued as Mandel-Wilson 9 and more commonly called the South Celestial Serpent. It’s an example of galactic cirrus or an integrated flux nebula, lit dimly not by a single star or cluster but the overall glow of the Milky Way. The imager took 46⅓ hours of RGB exposure with a 6-inch f/3.3 scope.