NGC 7380 (also known as the Wizard Nebula) is an open cluster discovered by Caroline Herschel in 1787. William Herschel included his sister's discovery in his catalog, and labelled it H VIII.77. It is also known as 142 in the 1959 Sharpless catalog (Sh2-142). This reasonably large nebula is located in Cepheus. It is extremely difficult to observe visually, usually requiring very dark skies and an O-III filter. [Source: Wikipedia].

What powers are being wielded in the Wizard Nebula? Gravitation strong enough to form stars, and stellar winds and radiations powerful enough to create and dissolve towers of gas. Located only 8,000 light years away, the Wizard nebula surrounds developing open star cluster NGC 7380. Visually, the interplay of stars, gas, and dust has created a shape that appears to some like a fictional medieval sorcerer. The active star forming region spans about 100 light years, making it appear larger than the angular extent of the Moon. The Wizard Nebula can be located with a small telescope toward the constellation of the King of Aethiopia (Cepheus). Although the nebula may last only a few million years, some of the stars being formed may outlive our Sun. [Source: APOD].

The image was captured with the Meade 12"LX200, using the Atik 383L+ mono at F7.16 (i.e. 2182mm FL). Astronomik's Ha, OIII and SII narrow band filters were used for the luminance and color mix. All subs were taken at 1x1 bin, -10C, and 10 minutes each.

Ha : 42 subs (7.00 hr) on Oct 20th and 21st.

OIII : 38 subs (6.33 hr) on Oct 23rd and 26th.

SII : 42 subs (7.00 hr) on Oct 24th and 25th.

Processing was done with PixInsight, following (for the most part) kayronjm's tutorial of Feb. 24th

North is up. This is a very slight crop.

Color mix for the image was per Juan's (PixInsight) preferred palette:

Red = 0.5 Ha + 0.5 SII

Green = 0.15 Ha + 0.85 OIII

Blue = OIII

The results of my effort reflect what happens when the target is larger than the camera's field of view. We have only a (large) chunk of the nebula, but still interesting in my opinion.

I continue to use my purchased version of Sequence Generator Pro, for all of the camera controls, including auto-focusing. I may return later to this target and try the software's Framing and Mosaic utility.