This is one of my favorite deep sky objects, nicknamed the Gecko Nebula. It is a molecular cloud located about 2000 light years away in the constellation of Lacerta at a declination of +41 degrees. The cloud is about 1.3 degrees long, which corresponds to a length of about 45 light years.
The cloud is located in a region of the sky that has a tremendous number of distant background Milky Way stars, as well as several bright foreground blue and yellow stars. The red Ha emission seen throughout the image is part of Sh2-126. The emission nebula is excited by the bright star 10 Lac, which is off image to the lower left.
At the head of the Gecko is a tiny intricate white reflection nebula, seen best in the full resolution view. The YSO (Young Star Object) at the center of this reflection nebula is Herbig Ae/Be V375 Lacertae. Numerous Herbig--Haro objects have been identified in the same region as the reflection nebula, including HH 398, the white wisp at the above mentioned star. YSOs are amazing objects - my Astrobin YSO Collection is
here.
Another interesting aspect of the head is the BRC, or Bright Rimmed Cloud. A BRC is the remnant of a molecular cloud which has been photoionized by a massive star. The bottom edge of the head of the Gecko is a BRC, as seen by the Ha emission front. BRCs containing these Ha fronts have been found to be strong candidates for star formation.
I was pretty happy at the time with my image of this object
taken in 2019 with my Tak 85 (with 4x the integration time), but in comparison, that image seems . . . well, a bit lacking.
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