This cloud covers an angular area of on the
celestial sphere. It consists of two major regions of dense gas and dust. The first contains a star-forming cloud (L1688) and two filaments (L1709 and L1755), while the second has a star-forming region (L1689) and a filament (L1712–L1729). These filaments extend up to 10–17.5 parsecs in length and can be as narrow as 0.24 parsecs in width. The large extensions of the complex are also called
Dark River clouds (or
Rho Ophiuchi Streamers) and are identified as
Barnard 44 and 45. Some of the structures within the complex appear to be the result of a shock front passing through the clouds from the direction of the neighboring
Sco OB2 association. Since the field of view of the photo is very small, at 6.4 arc-minutes, it displays just a tiny region of what appears in most other photographs of the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex. ==Gallery==