Dark Shark Nebula

LDN 1235, the Shark Nebula, is a dark/reflection nebula in the constellation Cepheus. It is about 650 light years away.  

The Shark Nebula is made up of interstellar dust, which is so thick it hides most of the light from behind it. As a bonus, there are two blue reflection nebulae, vdB149 and vdB150, that are illuminated by nearby stars.  There are a number of small galaxies in the image as well.  

Because they are so faint, images of dark nebula often take a lot of integration time to separate the dust from the background of space.