| Iris Nebula |
| The Iris Nebula floats as a delicate flower in the constellation Cepheus, 1200 light-years away. The blue reflection of starlight illuminating a cloud of dust provides most of the Iris Nebula's shimmering facade, punctuated by intervening obscuring darker clouds of dust. Additional dust more distant from the central star fails to reflect light, instead creating an opaque veil hiding more distant background stars. Astronomers designate this object as NGC 7023, following the visual description used by Johann Dreyer in his "New General Catalogue", published in 1888. The image above combined 56 minutes of clear luminance unbinned with 24 minutes each of red, green, and blue exposures binned 2x2, using a QSI583 camera through a Ricardi-Honders 12" F3.8 astrograph. The image below combined 85 minutes luminance exposures through a clear filter with 20 minutes of green and 30 minutes red and 45 minutes of blue exposures. An ST10XME camera was used through a TEC 140mm refractor, with an AP 0.67x reducer. Country roads take me home [to my new observatory], to a place I belong...... Life is old there older than the trees, younger than the mountains growin' like the breeze |
Music:
Take Me Home,
by John Denver
Take Me Home,
by John Denver
