Thanks to Mr. Sakib Rasool for suggesting to image this interesting area..The image is crossed diagonally by a trace of light coming from the close 2.21 magnitude star Shedar (Alpha Cas.)

The objects of the GN catalogue (Atlas of Galactic Nebulae), are

often very dim and not very interesting for astrophotographers.

But this is not true for all GN objects. A very nice example is

GN 00.42.0 in Cas. This bipolar nebula was discovered by

Neckel & Staude in 1984. This is the reason for it's alternative

designation: NS 2,DG4,Magakian 13 Credits(Bernhard Hubl)

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You don't get much more obscure than this nebula. It isn't listed in either NED nor SIMBAD yet is quite a good nebula for imaging. It goes by several rather obscure names such as Magakian 13 and NS 2. It is also in the Galactic

Nebula catalog of galactic nebula a catalog of most other galactic nebula catalogs under the designation GN 00.42.0. Oddly SIMBAD contains many entries from the GN catalog. Most are fainter than this one so why did they miss it? I've seen it described as being a bi-polar nebula but I'm not seeing that in my image. Others call it simply a reflection nebula and one source said "Cometary Nebula?" The nebula is located in Cassiopeia about 1.4 degrees southeast of the far more famous NGC 281 PacMan nebula. In fact it was a wide angle shot of that nebula I saw that first introduced me to this nebula's existence.

To further confuse the issue the Deep Sky Observer's Companion lists it under the name DG 4 which is in SIMBAD but SIMBAD puts it at different coordinates over 1.5 degrees away. The POSS server shows nothing at the SIMBAD location for DG 4.

One object in the image most sources do include is LDN 1299 which, while centered a bit below this object is listed as being 4.5' across and thus includes this nebula. So for those wondering how to find it use LDN 1299. It's the easiest way.

Credits: (Rick Johnson)