The shadowy filaments of Le Gentil 3, a very large dark nebula complex, fill the area of sky in the center of the frame between Deneb and the North America Nebula in Cygnus at left and Herschel's Garnet Star and IC 1396 in Cepheus at right.

Le Gentil 3 is named after the French observer Guillaume-Joseph-Hyacinthe-Jean-Baptiste Le Gentil de la Galaziere, who observed and cataloged it in the 1700s. It is also known as Globular Filament 7 (GF 7), cataloged by Schneider & Elmegreen in 1979 (ApJS 41, 87).

This image is a composite of data taken with two different cameras and two different lenses.

• Lens: 50mm f/1.4 Nikkor Manual Focus
• F/stop: f/4
• Exposure: 4 x 120 second, no filter, 6 x 300 seconds IDAS LPS filter
• Mount: Losmandy GM100EQ
• Camera: Canon EOS 1D Mark III DSLR
• Mode: Raw
• ISO: 1600
• White Balance: Custom
• Filter: IDAS LPS
• Temp: 65F
• Date August 3, 2008
• Location: Scott's Pit
• Calibration: Master Darks, Master Bias in Images Plus
• Processing: white point, non-linear curve, neutralize sky background, flatten sky background, set black point, fix cosmetic imperfections, mask highlights, enhance shadows, SMI enhance, highpass filtered softlight layer

Exposure Data

• Lens: Canon 16 - 35mm f/2.8L USM zoom working at 20mm
• F/stop: f/4
• Exposure: 5 x 300 seconds
  
• Mount: Losmandy GM100EQ
• Camera: Canon EOS 20Da DSLR
• Mode: JPEG
• ISO: 800
• Filter: None
• White Balance: Daylight
• In-Camera Noise Reduction: Off
• Temp: 50F
• Date September 3, 2005
• Location: Black Forest Star Party
• Calibration: None.
• Processing: The light frames were registered and stacked in Images Plus. The sky background was neutralized in levels in Photoshop. The color was then enhanced by an increase in the saturation.