Celestial hemisphere:  Northern  ·  Constellation: Cepheus (Cep)  ·  Contains:  Iris Nebula  ·  NGC 7023
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Iris Nebula, NGC 7023, LBN 487, or Caldwell 4 (cropped), GeOK
Iris Nebula, NGC 7023, LBN 487, or Caldwell 4 (cropped)
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Iris Nebula, NGC 7023, LBN 487, or Caldwell 4 (cropped)

Getting plate-solving status, please wait...
Iris Nebula, NGC 7023, LBN 487, or Caldwell 4 (cropped), GeOK
Iris Nebula, NGC 7023, LBN 487, or Caldwell 4 (cropped)
Powered byPixInsight

Iris Nebula, NGC 7023, LBN 487, or Caldwell 4 (cropped)

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Description

This is a closer crop of the previous wide field image.  The Iris Nebula (NGC 7023, LBN 487, or Caldwell 4) is an example of a reflection nebula because light from the very young +7.4 mag star (HD 200775, SAO 19158, or V380 Cep) reflects off of the surrounding dust clouds of LBN 487 making them appear bluish instead of looking like the other dark nebulae in this region.  

Earlier references attribute the reddish light coming from some of the vertical filaments in this image of LBN 487 to light emission from ionized hydrogen (like the more familiar pictures of other red colored emission nebulae), but recent images from Hubble instead suggest this reddish color is from light reflecting off of hydrocarbon molecules in LBN 487.  The Iris Nebula is about 1,400 ly away.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/the-iris-nebula
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_Nebula

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Iris Nebula, NGC 7023, LBN 487, or Caldwell 4 (cropped), GeOK