Regardless of what you think this looks like
, it’s officially the “Flying Bat” and “Giant Squid” nebula. The reddish Sharpless 129, known as the Flying Bat, is a Hydrogen-alpha emission nebula located in the constellation Cepheus. The ghostly blue squid-like nebula Ou4 is very large, almost 3 full moons in length, but it is extremely faint, so faint that it was only discovered in 2011 by French amateur astronomer Nicolas Outters. Its shape is distinguished by the blue-green emission from doubly ionized Oxygen atoms. Initially, the Squid was believed to be planetary nebula, but it’s currently thought to be an outflow from the bright blue star at its center, which is actually a triple system of stars. The Squid is estimated to lie 2,300 light years distant, which means it would be nearly 50 light years from end to end. That truly is a giant squid. Due to the extremely low brightness of the squid, I knew it was going to take hours and hours of exposures to uncover. It’s something I’ve always wanted to image but had to develop the patience first. I started taking pictures of this object on August 12th, and continued imaging over twelve nights until August 28th, with a five-day break in the middle to accommodate Tropical Storm Hilary, the first tropical storm to hit California in 26 years. I captured 71 hours of 10-minute exposures, 53 hours of which were usable, and this is the result. I probably won’t ever spend this much time on a single target again, unless something new and faint and noteworthy is discovered.
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