When capturing my recent wide field shot of the Squid nebula I noticed a little patch of nebulosity that I decided to check out at higher magnification with my largest scope. And, because I might be insane, I spent 22 hours of exposure time on it over multiple nights.
This is VdB 140, a faint and mostly overlooked nebula in the constellation Cepheus. It is small and very faint and contains both subtle blue reflection elements illuminated by the nearby blue giant star as well as an emission nebula primarily in ionized hydrogen. I captured both broadband and narrowband data to try to bring out some of the detail in this unusual target. The reflection nebula can be seen in the blue-ish smoke like detail with the deep red of the emission nebula behind it, all centered on the sixth magnitude supergiant blue star that is making it glow.
I think it was worth it to give some attention to this cosmic neighbor that is just 2,500 lightyears away, don’t you?
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