Here's a picture I took about a month ago with the 4" refractor. The Snake Nebula gets its name from the obvious resemblance to those slithering reptiles that are frequently seen around here in Arizona. I've seen quite a few of them while hiking and even in the backyard on occasion.
The Snake Nebula is also known as Barnard 72 and is a dark nebula composed of a thick cloud of dust and gas which obscures the starlight behind it. Thus, even though it is located towards the center of our galaxy (note the many stars in the field around it), it appears as a black shape. There are several other Barnard objects in this field as well.
It's been cloudy and I've been busy lately but I still have a few data sets like this one to work on.
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