Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Cepheus (Cep)  ·  Contains:  B369  ·  NGC 7226  ·  RW Cep  ·  Sh2-132
Sh2-132 - 2018, Gary Imm
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Sh2-132 - 2018

Sh2-132 - 2018, Gary Imm
Powered byPixInsight

Sh2-132 - 2018

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Description

This object is a large emission nebula located 12,000 light years away in the constellations of Cepheus and Lacerta. It is the second consecutive object I have imaged which actually resembles its namesake quite well.

The large orange star on the left is one of the largest known stars in existence, with a diameter larger than the orbit of Jupiter. It is not certain whether this star, the hypergiant RW Cephei, is associated with the nebula or is just in the same field of view.

Two Wolf-Rayet stars, WR 152 and WR 153, are doing most of the ionization of the nebula. WR 152 is located in the center of the bluish area (OIII) in the Lion's legs, while WR 153 is located in the center of the yellowish area (Ha) at the head of the Lion.

The most fascinating aspect of this image to me is the visual evidence of the wide arcing fronts of two expanding gas bubbles. As a revision, I included an inverted image which shows these fronts somewhat better. Surprisingly, the Wolf-Rayet stars described above are not the driving mechanism for the bubbles, as they are for other familar objects such as Thor's Helmet, the Crescent Nebula, and Sh2-308.

One large bubble appears to be driven by the star cluster Berkeley 94, centered just below the bright orange star. The other large bubble encloses two dark nebulae towards the upper right, LDN 1150 and LDN 1154. It seems to me that the bubble could be driven by the apparent star cluster just to the left of these dark nebulae, but I could find no evidence in the literature that this grouping of stars is even a cluster.

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