Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Cepheus (Cep)  ·  Contains:  Iris Nebula  ·  NGC 7023
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NGC 7023, George Simon
NGC 7023
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NGC 7023

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
NGC 7023, George Simon
NGC 7023
Powered byPixInsight

NGC 7023

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Description

As part of my recent project of returning to targets that I have not imaged in several years, I gathered 4.5 hours of data on NGC 7023, the ever-popular Iris Nebula. When I processed the data, I was surprised to see ruddy areas in the core of this reflection nebula. Most images of the Iris depict the nebula as all blue. To make sure that I had not made an egregious error in my processing, I did a bit of research and discovered that small regions near the nebula's central star glow with extended red emission (ERE), which is a kind of photoluminescence that can occur when dust particles are bombarded by high-energy ultraviolet radiation. Indeed, a Hubble image of the core of NGC 7032, released in 2009, shows a region with the same reddish color that can be seen in my image.

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NGC 7023, George Simon

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Cloudy Nights