Barnard 44, the Dark River, in the center of this image, is a large dark nebula in Ophiuchus that stretches 10 degrees from the Antares/Rho Ophiuchi nebulae complex to the east, all the way to the Pipe Nebula. It is 500 light-years away from us. Antares, a red supergiant star at the heart of Scorpius on the right side of the image, illuminates a rare yellow/red reflection nebula. Normally reflection nebulae are blue, like the one surrounding Rho Ophiuchi above Antares. Antares lies 600 light-years away and has a diameter of 400 times that of the Sun. Ancient globular cluster M4 can also be seen in the image, above and to the right of Antares. It lies at a distance of 7,200 light-years. E. E. Barnard listed the Dark River as Barnard 44 in his catalog of dark nebula in A Photographic Atlas of Selected Regions of the Milky Way, recording it on plate 13 and plate 14.