This image captures several different types of nebulae located in the constellation of Cepheus at a declination of +65 degrees.
The brightest red vertical HII emission object just left of center is Sh2-150, while the large HII emission object at the bottom of the image is Sh2-145. They are located about 3000 light years away.
Just above Sh2-150 is the reflection nebula vdB 154, which appears purplish because of the interplay between the reddish emission and the blue star reflection nebula. The bright blue star at image center is magnitude 5.8 star 26 Cep. Between these blue stars, and so small that it can only be seen on the full resolution image, is the tiny white fan-shaped reflection nebula RNO 142.
Several dark nebulae are also visible. At top left is the dark dusty nebula LDN 1214, blocking out the majority of the stars behind it. Immediately below, and somewhat continuous with it, is LDN 1213. The vertical dark swath across the emission regions is LDN 1209.
At the top right of the image is the extremely faint ancient planetary nebula known as PK107+7.1, and also named IsWe 2 and IW 2. It is located 850 light years away in the constellation of Cepheus at a declination of +66 degrees. All PN are faint to some degree, but this one is extremely faint. Perhaps that is why this object wasn't discovered until 1987, by Ishida and Weinberger. This PN is large at 20 arc-minutes in our apparent view, with a diameter of 4 light years. It is one of the largest PN in true size and is almost twice the diameter of the large Helix Nebula (NGC 7293). This PN is suspected to be one of the oldest known PN, on the order of 50,000 years.
The light gathering power of the RASA is evident by comparing this image of this PN with the one I took with
my refractor in 2019, which is not as good despite having more than 3 times the integration time.
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