Sandqvist 172 is a dense, winding dark nebula located in the southern constellation Circinus, approximately 2,275 light-years away. It spans nearly 100 arcminutes across the sky and lies within the Circinus-West molecular cloud complex, a region rich in obscuring dust and faint emission.
This nebula features a tangled structure of dark filaments that block the starlight from the Milky Way behind it. Near the center lies the faint reflection nebula vdBH 66, and faint red filaments of hydrogen-alpha emission subtly glow through the darkness.
Imaged in LRGB and H alpha on my Planewave DR 350 at Observatorio El Sauce, Chile.
Image Acquisition and Processing: Mike Selby