This wide field image spans 13.9° x 9.5° of northern Cygnus and southern Cepheus, is oriented with the celestial pole to upper right. and was acquired with a Samyang 85mm UMC lens and Canon 1100D camera operating at f4.

For reference, Alderamin, alpha Cephei, is the bright white star at top center, glowing at m. 2.5 and spectral class A8Vn. A close neighbor to Earth, it is only 49 light years distant, and due to precession, will be the "north star in 7500 AD. The bright yellowish star to lower right of Alderamin is eta Cephei, while the bluish star to its right is theta Cephei. Below eta Cephei are two yellowish "stars", which upon closer inspection appear "fuzzy" and indistinct. The leftmost is the Fireworks galaxy, NGC 6946 / Caldwell 12, a spiral distant 25.2 million light years, and to its right is the open cluster NGC 6939, "only" 3800 light years away.

The large emission nebula at upper left is IC 1396, which consists of an open cluster surrounded by a dimmer, reddish emission nebula. Prominent along the upper edge of IC 1396 is Herschel's Garnet star, mu Cephei, a variable star which ranges in magnitude from m. 3.4 to m. 5.1, but shown here near maximum. Mu Cephei is one of the largest known stars with a diameter of 24 astronomical units, and if it were located in our solar system, its surface would extend to beyond the orbit of Saturn.

The fainter reddish emission region to the right of IC 1396, and near top center, is the "Flying Bat" nebula, Sharpless 2-129.

Multiple dark nebulae also are visible in this image. Barnard 160 and Barnard 162 lie the southern edge of IC 1396, while Barnard 161 is visible in its interior. Barnard 150 is the snake-like feature between Sharpless 2-129 and eta Cephei, slightly above and right of center. The northern Coal Sack. also known as La Gentil 3, is the prominent complex of dark nebulae at lower left, with various tendrils extending northward toward IC 1396. Similar tendrils extending southward into Cygnus frame the more famous, and frequently imaged, North America nebula and the Pelican nebula, as can be easily seen on my wide field image of the La Gentil 3 region.