Object:NGC 7380 (also known as the Wizard Nebula) is an open cluster discovered by Caroline Herschel in 1787. William Herschel included his sister’s discovery in his catalog and labelled it H VIII.77. It is also known as 142 in the 1959 Sharpless catalog (Sh2-142). This reasonably large nebula is in Cepheus. It is extremely difficult to observe visually, usually requiring very dark skies and an O-III filter.
Located 7200 light years away, the Wizard nebula, surrounds developing open star cluster NGC 7380. Visually, the interplay of stars, gas, and dust has created a shape that appears to some like a fictional medieval sorcerer. The active star forming region spans about 100 light years, making it appear larger than the angular extent of the Moon. The Wizard Nebula can be located with a small telescope toward the constellation of the King of Aethiopia (Cepheus). Although the nebula may last only a few million years, some of the stars being formed may outlive our Sun. (Courtesy of Wikipedia)
Taken: August 7, 2020
Telescope: Astro-Tech 14” RC with Starizona Apex-ED L 0.65x focal reducer
Mount: Paramount ME II unguided
Camera: ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro (cooled to -10C; Unity gain) Bin 1×1.
Focuser: Moonlite Nitecrawler
Rotator: Moonlite Nitecrawler
Filters used: ZWO H-a, O-III and S-II 7nm narrowband filters on a ZWO 8 position filter wheel
Exposures: 39×180 seconds H-a, 44×180 seconds O-III and 42×180 seconds S-II for a total exposure time of 6.25 hours; calibrated with 100 bias frames, 40 dark frames, 40 flat frames each filter with 40 dark-flats.
Seeing Conditions:
Image capture and telescope control: Sequence Generator Pro and TheSkyX Pro
Processed with PixInsight, and Photoshop CC 2022