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 lower left and Herschel's Garnet Star and IC 1396 in Cepheus at upper right.

Easily visible to the unaided eye from a true dark-sky observing site, 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 1700's. It is also known as Globular Filament 7 (GF 7), cataloged by Schneider & Elmegreen in 1979 in the Astrophysical Journal Supplement 41, 87.

Another interesting dark nebula, Barnard 168, an impressive binocular object, lies at the upper left-center of the photo, with IC 5146, the Cocoon Nebula, located at the top of its dark lane.

The red nebulae in the image are emission nebulae.

North is to the lower right in the above image.

Le Gentil 3 Catalogs: LG3, GF7 Common Name: Le Gentil 3 Object Type: Dark Nebula Size: 7° x 7° Constellation: Cygnus Image Field Centered At: RA: 21h 16m 49s Dec: +50° 46' 12"