This object is a faint nebula located in the constellation of Lacerta at a declination of +38 degrees. Like most faint nebula, we do not have a good distance estimate for it. This magnitude 16 nebula has a surface brightness of only 23. It is 30 arc-minutes long. This object is the 438th entry in the Lynds Catalogue of Bright Nebulae.

There are 2 fascinating aspects of this object - its shape, and its color. Despite a lot of research, I can't explain either one.

The shape of the nebula reminds me of a hand reaching up to the sky. What is causing the unique 4 lobed shape at the top of the nebula? Sometimes there are bright nearby stars whose stellar winds are shaping and eroding nebulae such as this one, but I don’t see anything like that here.

The red glowing color is beautiful and a bit eerie. What is causing it? Almost every internet source says, with very similar wording, that this is an ERE (Extended Red Emission) object. ERE is a broad emission in the red band, peaking from 600 to 800 nm, detected in some interstellar objects such as planetary nebulae, reflection nebulae, HII regions, and galactic dark nebulae at high latitudes. It is thought to be the result of photoluminescence of dust by far-ultraviolet (FUV) photons, although its exact mechanism is still being debated in the scientific community. It is probably present in every interstellar dust object, but it is hard to detect because it is faint and appears in the presence of more intense sources such as reflected light and emission. This makes ERE very difficult to detect and the subject of study, without much resolution, for over 30 years now. This object (LBN 438) is not listed amongst those objects in which ERE has been studied and confirmed. So, after reviewing 10 papers on this subject and seeing the challenges of confirming its presence in any object, my belief is that ERE is not simply detected by observing a red glow in an image such as this one. While ERE could be responsible for part of the interesting red glow of this object, I think that an emission and/or reflection mechanism is more likely here.



The distant galaxy at the top of the image is UGC 12137. It is 220 million light years away and about the same size as our galaxy, at 120,000 light years in diameter. It looks a bit disturbed, perhaps by a small potential companion below and left of this galaxy. A potential follow-up image with the C11 may be warranted here!