Young suns still lie within dusty NGC 7129, some 3,000 light-years away toward the royal constellation Cepheus. While these stars are at a relatively tender age, only a few million years old, it is likely that our own Sun formed in a similar stellar nursery some five billion years ago. Noticeable in the image are the lovely bluish dust clouds that reflect the youthful starlight. But the compact, faint red crescent shapes are also markers of energetic, young stellar objects. Known as Herbig-Haro objects, their shape and color is characteristic of glowing hydrogen gas shocked by jets streaming away from newborn stars. Ultimately the natal gas and dust in the region will be dispersed, the stars drifting apart as the loose cluster orbits the center of the Galaxy.

If you view the Aug 29th, 2016 APOD (not the above view), you will see extended filaments of reddish emission mingling with the bluish clouds. These are caused by dust grains effectively converting the invisible ultraviolet starlight to visible red light through photo-luminescence. You will also see that their remarkable composite image has revealed the faint red strands of emission at the upper right. They are recently recognized as a likely supernova remnant and are currently being analyzed by Bo Reipurth (Univ. Hawaii) who obtained the image data at the Subaru telescope. At the estimated distance of NGC 7129, this telescopic view spans over 40 light-years. [Reference: APOD Aug 29, 2016]

The image was captured with the Celestron CGE Pro mount and the venerable Meade 12"LX200 SCT, using my Atik 383L+ mono at F7.16 (i.e. 2182mm FL). Astronomik's Luminance, Red, Green and Blue broad band filters were used. Imaging subs were taken at 1x1 bin, -10C, and 10 minutes each for Lum, and 5 minutes for the R, G and B subs.

Image information -- 2017

Image --

Lum 600s: 58 subs (9.67 hr) on Oct 22, Oct 23, Oct24 and Oct 25th.

Red 300s: 27 subs (2.25 hr) on Oct 22, Oct 23, and Oct 24th.

Green 300s: 27 subs (2.25 hr) on Oct 22, Oct 23, and Oct 24th.

Blue 300s: 29 subs (2.42 hr) on Oct 22, Oct 23, and Oct 24th.

Processing was done with PixInsight, following (for the most part) kayronjm's tutorial of Feb. 24th. Lum filter was used for the Luminance image. R, G and B were collected for the color mix. The detail and color came out nicely, although nowhere near the APOD image. I may try to add some Ha to the mix to bring out the very faint streaks, not evident on my image.

North is to the right (I think, or left????), and this is a slight crop due to the misalignment accumulation from the different filters and times.

EDIT: Oct 30, 2017

Added Ha to RED subs using Harry's (and Vincent Peres') technique.

Ha 1200s: 40 subs (13.33 hr) on Oct 26, Oct 27, and Oct 29th.

This tended a bit more to the red overall and may not be to most tastes.

However, it did highlight the Herbig-Haro objects. Those are the tight little very red objects floating around the main nebula.