This area is a very rich star field nestled between the Wizard and the Elephants Trunk nubulae in Cepheus constellation. B174 is the dark nebula on the left side of the image. This is a very dense and cold cloud of interstellar matter that is blocking out the star field that lies behind it. This is an active star forming region. However, the cloud is so dense we cannot see much of the action taking place! The most of newly formed stars can only be seen in the infrared spectrum.
There are a few new stars that are visible however. Near the center-right of the nebula lies one of them. It is a rarely imaged Herbig-Haro object separately classified as HH354. It appears as a tiny red patch. This is a type of nebula where newborn stars eject narrow jets of ionized gas that collide with the nearby clouds at several hundred kilometers per second.
On the center-right side of the image is the nebulous area LBN485. This is a Hydrogen Alpha emission nebula. In fact, the entire region is luminescing various shades and intensities of red. This is generally caused by Hydrogen gas that is excited by the radiation from nearby energetic stars.
This was a challenging image to process. In order to resolve the Ha emission and make the image more captivating, I captured quite a bit of Ha signal which I blended into the red channel. My RGB data was not as clean as I would have liked due to some occasionally passing high thin ice clouds that were present for several of the imaging nights. I ended up discarding about half of my data in the end. My stars are not as clean as they could be due to the conditions and a persistant bit of stubborn tilt. I am planning a trip up to the observatory in a few weeks to continue my endless search for zero sensor tilt!
Hope you like it
CS
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