Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Cepheus (Cep)  ·  Contains:  NGC 7380
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NGC7380 Wizard Nebula, Joe Niemeyer
NGC7380 Wizard Nebula
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NGC7380 Wizard Nebula

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
NGC7380 Wizard Nebula, Joe Niemeyer
NGC7380 Wizard Nebula
Powered byPixInsight

NGC7380 Wizard Nebula

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Description

Continuing my exploration of the northern sky, I decided to image the Wizard Nebula (catalog NGC 7380). It is located in the constellation Cepheus about 8,500 light years from Earth and was discovered by Caroline Herschel in 1787. She was the sister of the famous astronomer William Herschel and he included her discovery in his astronomical catalog which was later the basis of the New General Catalog (NGC). William Herschel is most famous for discovering Uranus, infrared light, and the theory of star evolution.

This nebula's red color is a give-away that this is an emission nebula which is lit by ionized hydrogen. The ionization is caused by a binary star system consisting of 2 massive stars. If you use your imagination, you can see the wizard looking right and wearing a pointy sorcerer's hat. His nose is huge and there are stars coming out of his mouth. Toward the middle of the image you can make out his hands. He's a pretty big wizard because from top to bottom this nebula stretches about 100 light years. This nebula will dissipate in a few million years, so enjoy it while you can!

I made this image from twenty-four 300-second exposures through my Baader dual-bandpass filter (Hα and OIII) at 2312mm prime focal length, calibrated with 20 each dark, flat, and dark flat frames. I stacked the frames with Astro Pixel Processor and post-processed with Photoshop utilizing the StarXTerminator, Astronomy Tools, and Topaz DeNoise AI plugins.

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NGC7380 Wizard Nebula, Joe Niemeyer