NGC7380 – The Wizard Nebula

The ‘Wizard’ in this image is sitting upright, looking toward the right. He’s wearing a pointed hat and a cloak, and his hands are outstretched. He has a pointed nose and a bright eye.

NGC7380 is an open star cluster that was discovered by Caroline Herschel (sister of Sir William Herschel) in 1787. The rich nebulosity surrounding the cluster was not appreciated until the advent of astrophotography, and in 1959 it was included in the Sharpless catalogue of H-II regions (emission nebulae featuring the strong Hydrogen-alpha spectral line) with the designation SH2-142.

The object is found in the constellation of Cepheus, near the border with Cassiopeia.  It is about 7200 light-years distant, and the part of the region shown in this image is about 55 light-years from top to bottom.

This is a narrowband image. As our eyes do not see  in narrowband, the images from the three filters which pass only photons from ionized sulphur (S-II), hydrogen (H-alpha) and oxygen (O-III) have been mapped to the conventional RGB channels our eyes are used to. The H-α signal dominates the image and some re-balancing of the channels is necessary to allow the other wavelengths to be seen. Non-primary colours indicate where signal from more than one narrowband filter is present.

In terms of the physics going on here, radiation from the hot young stars is creating bubbles of clear space around them, while causing the edges of the dark clouds to glow as they evaporate.

North is 15° clockwise from the top of this image.

This is a 2025 re-processing of the original data, utilizing a recently developed process in PixInsight to balance the narrowband channels.

Technical details:

Planewave CDK-14 corrected Dall-Kirkham reflector; FLI Proline P9000 cooled CCD camera and filter wheel; Astrodon 3nm narrowband filters; Monster MOAG off-axis guider; Starlight Xpress Ultrastar guide camera.

Total exposure times 10.5 hours through each filter (S-II, H-α and O-III).

Acquisition software: Astronomers’ Control Program (ACP)/Expert Scheduler; Maxim DL; PWI3 focus;

Processing: Pleiades Astrophoto PixInsight