The Eye of Talek was an astronomical object that was located in the Alpha Quadrant.

It was noted as being the smallest black hole in the space belonging to the Cardassian Union and was believed to had been one of the oldest which led to some mistakeningly believing that it was an imploded star. The Eye dated from the formation of the universe according to the legends of the Cardassians though cosmology tended to agree with them. The Cardassians discovered it before they had developed space travel and accomplish this through the use of the telescope. After finding it, they did not know what it was at the time and later named it after the mythological monster Talek.

Typicaly black holes kept the same mass it had when it was a star but ones like the Eye of Talek had an unknown origin though it was believed such small ones were ancient. In appearance, it resembled a hole that punctured the fabric of space and was notable for an absence of stars and a golden halo of gas as well as dust that was streaming into it. This phenomena was the size of a saucer section of a large starship but was completely black in color.

In 2373, the Dominion was attempting to create an artificial wormhole that linked the Alpha Quadrant to their strongholds in the Gamma Quadrant. However, the unstable nature of the mouth of such a phenomena meant that they required an exotic material to reinforce the verteron collider. The only known substance was located in the mouth of black holes and was called Corzanium which led to the Dominion dispatching a mining vessel to harvest such material for their use. (DS9 novel: Behind Enemy Lines)