| Description | Images | SH2-112Sharpless 112 (SH2-112) is a molecular cloud that is forming a star cluster. Come back in a few million years and you'll see only a star cluster, not the brilliant red cloud we see today. This nebula is located in the constellation of Cygnus the Swan not far from Deneb and the North American Nebula. Though it is not related to either. It is about twice as far away as they are at about 5600 light years. Notice there are far more stars in the southeast corner of the image (lower left) than elsewhere. This is because only part of the molecular cloud is lit up by the illuminating star BD+45 3216. It is the brightest star you see in the nebula and is near the dark lane toward the center. It is a very blue star, classed as O8, it emits most of its light in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum. Such stars live only about 3 million years before going boom as a supernova. It was formed out of the cloud then escaped it. Now situated in front of the part we see, its ultraviolet light causes the hydrogen gas in the cloud to glow its characteristic pink color. It even causes some oxygen to glow giving a slight blue cast to the part of the nebula nearest the star where the ultraviolet light is strongest. The dark lanes are were the cloud is too dense to glow and is where most of the stars are forming. They are hidden behind all the dust in the cloud. I couldn't find any Chandra or other IR. images of this object, however. The fewer stars except to the lower left show there's a lot of background stars obscured by unlit parts of the cloud. Only those parts facing us that are close enough to it for sufficient ultraviolet light to hit it is visible, the rest is dark and seen only because it blocks background stars. I used 2.5 times my normal exposure time on this nebula. |
| SH2-115Sharpless 115 is a very large emission nebula in the constellation of Cygnus the Swan, about as far west of Deneb as the North American Nebula is east of it. It is thought to be about 7,500 light years distant and contain enough gas to make 4400 stars the size of our sun. It covers several times the area of sky that I can fit into my field of view. The nebula likely formed the star cluster Berkeley 90 toward the upper left of center in my image. The illuminating star, the one whose ultraviolet light causes the hydrogen gas to glow, is a member of the cluster and one of the brightest and most massive stars known. It is classed as 06. Find the cluster and note there are two brighter stars diagonally across opposite sides of the cluster from 7 O'clock to 1 O'clock. The one at 7 O'clock is the illuminating star. It is known as LS III +46 12. It appears dim compared to other stars in my image because most of its light is emitted as ultra violet light. That is mostly blocked by our atmosphere and what little does get through is blocked by my filters since it is outside the visual range of our eyes. The nebula itself is about 100 light years across. For a star to light up gas 50 light years from it is quite a feat and shows how bright it really is! But for that it will pay dearly. It will live only a couple million years before going supernova while our sun with less than 1/10th the mass will live over 10 billion years. |
| SH2-116Sh2-116 is also known as Abell 71. It is "embedded" in the much larger SH2-115 which is centered well southeast of my image. Sh2-115 really needs to be shot in H alpha with a wide angle telescope. So its outskirts show up poorly in my image. I can't find much on this object, not even a distance estimate. It is located in Cygnus not far from Deneb which cast a nasty gradient across the image. Removing it without removing nebula covering the entire image wasn't easy nor done all that well. Another reason for H alpha data. Since the distance to Sh2-116 is unknown there's no way of knowing how it relates to Sh2-115 that is also in my image. It may be in front, in it or beyond it. No way to know. So the appearance of Sh2-116 being in Sh2-115 is likely only an illusion but there's no way to know for sure either way from what I could find. |
| SH2-126Sh2-126/LBN 428 is a large HII/Reflection Nebula with lots of dust in Lacerta. It contains an interesting reflection nebula centered on the variable star V0375 Lac that varies from 14.24 to 12.94 magnitude. It appears elongated in my image. This appears due to the reflection nebula as if I only look at the brightest pixels it does appear round. NED and SIMBAD also show another object at the same coordinates, MRK 0914. NED lists it as the same object and considers it an UV Excess Source. SIMBAD shows it as a different object with exactly the same position and as a galaxy. Could this galaxy designation come from the oval appearance? A bit SW of its position is a bright area that does appear galaxy like but nothing is listed for that position. SIMBAD identifies the reflection nebula as GN 22.32.5. Simbad also shows several HH regions in the reflection nebula, one of which also shares the same coordinates as the star and the Markaryan object, HH 398. It's enough to make my brain hurt. I find little on the distance to this object. One source says 600 parsecs or about 2000 light years. That's probably a very large "about". Related Designations for SH2-126SH2-126, |
| SH2-127Sh2-127/LBN 436 is an emission nebula in northern Cygnus not far north of M39. Galaxy map has this to say about it: "Radio analysis reveals that Sh 2-127 consists of two distinct components - a larger weaker and more diffuse source (WB89 85A) to the northeast, consistent with ionisation by an O7 class star, and a stronger but smaller source to the southwest (WB89 85B), consistent with ionisation by an O8.5 class star. (However, it is also possible that both components are ionised by a single star.) Both components are located near the northwestern edge of a molecular cloud and are embedded in the molecular gas." |
| SH2-132SH2-132/LBN 473 is an emission nebula in southern Cepheus. It's a bit big for my FOV but I never let that stop me before. Galaxy map puts its distance as a bit over 10,000 light-years. It is usually seen in narrow band images often using H alpha for the luminance channel. This tends to miss the rather strong OIII emission and its reflection component making most photos of this image appearing mostly red. Normally the OIII is rather cyan in color being rather equal in my blue and green filters. Here the blue was stronger than the green. I assume this means there's a reflection nebula component to this nebula as well. Or it has far more H beta than is usually seen. |
| SH2-135SH2-135 seems composed of LBN 492 and LBN 493. These are emission nebulae in southern Cepheus. This is a very early image taken before I knew how to combine Ha alpha data with color data. I didn't take the necessary frames to do it right and haven't ever returned to try again. As a result, the H alpha image shows more detail than when I tried to add color. |
| SH2-136Sh2-136/AKA GN 21.15.8 is often known as the "Ghost Nebula" for obvious reasons. It is also known as vdB 141. It is a reflection nebula with a Bok globule. The region to the right of the head and above the "Ghost's" left arm is LDN 1177. Galaxy Map puts its distance at about 1500 light-years but puts the error bar at +/- 500 light-years. The nebula is located in Cepheus about 1.3 degrees east of the Iris Nebula. To display the "ghost" rightside up I am posting this one with south up rather than my normal north at the top. |
| SH2-140Sh2-140 is an emission nebula in Cepheus. One distance estimate I found puts it about 2900 light-years from us. The illuminating star is the brightest one in my image a bit to the lower right of center. It is actually a double star that my ham handed processing years ago has turned into one big blob. I do need to reprocess this one. The star is HD 211880. It has a mass of about 35 suns. SIMBAD shows it as a B0.5V star. Oddly SIMBAD classifies this object as an open cluster rather than an emission nebula. Most images of this nebula are done using narrow band filters though I used pure RGB for it. |
| SH2-146Sh2-146/LBN 514 is a "small" emission nebula in east-central Cepheus just below Iota. Galaxy map puts it nearly 18,000 light years distant and 19 light-years across. That source says it is "lit" by the ultraviolet light of a heavily obscured O7 star. I'm not sure which one it is. A strong dust lane does cut it into two parts. The whole field seems obscured, especially to the east. The star count rises rapidly to the west side of my image. There's a faint hint of dust in the star poor area in my raw FITS images but it is too noisy to bring out. Conditions were poor when I took this. I tried to compensate with a lot more time but it didn't help much if at all. It just seemed to add to the halos around the stars. |
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