Nebula

No fancy name for this emission nebula in Cepheus, but there is a lot of activity. NGC 7822 is a star forming region about 2,900 light years away. Estimates put…

I always like to see how much imagination you need to have to see how the name of a nebula aligns with what we see in the image. We've had…

Can you spot the Elephant's Trunk in the image? The large round and dark section at the top, is the elephant's head. The hole represents the elephant's eye. And the…

NGC 7129 is a reflection nebula located in the constellation Cepheus. Located 3,300 light years away, NGC 7129 is a young open cluster of newborn stars. Many of the stars within the cluster are less than 1 million years old, which is very young when you consider many of these stars will live to be many billions of years old. The gaseous features are the left over ingredients for star formation.

NGC 7129 is a reflection nebula. Reflection nebulas reflect light from nearby stars while emission nebulas generate light from ionized gases. Reflection nebulas are images through red, green, and blue filters while emission nebulas are best imaged with narrowband filters (Sulphur-II, Hydrogen-Alpha, Oxygen-III).