These 2 faint reflection and emission nebulae are located 600 light years away in the constellation of Cassiopeia at a declination of +61 degrees. They are each a hydrogen emission nebula which also has a strong reflection component, leading to a unique red/purple combination hue throughout each nebulae.
The bright blue star is Gamma Cassiopeia, the middle star of the Cassiopeia constellation. The nebulae point directly at this bright star because the edges of the dust and gas cloud are being buffeted back by the intense star radiation. The nebulae are located about 3 light years away from Gamma Cassiopeia.
The star cluster at upper left is NGC 381, 4000 light years away. This magnitude 9 open star cluster is about 5 arc-minutes in diameter, which corresponds to a diameter of 6 light years. The cluster is believed to contain about 350 stars.
A closer view of these nebulae taken with my C11 is shown
here. Revision G of this post compares the same section of the 2 images at the same zoom level. Both images were taken with the same camera, bin 1 for the RASA and bin 2 for the C11. The RASA image is at a focal length of 620mm and an integration time of 3 hrs. The C11 image is at a focal length of 2800mm and an integration time of 5 hours.
Comments