Sharpless 119 is a large complex of emission nebulosity in Cygnus, about 3 degrees east of the North American Nebula, located around the bright 5th-magnitude star 68 Cygni (right of the center of the image). It extends beyond the edges of this image. It shows up quite easily on well-exposed wide-angle images of the region as large red spot of emission nebulosity. S. Sharpless actually describes it as Type 3, "bright" in his famous "Catalogue of H II Regions" published in 1959. Interestingly, there are several dark lanes and dark globules overlaying the southern part of the nebula. The area is part of the Milky Way and is populated by numerous stars.
Sh2-119 can be observed visually with a rich-field telescope and a UHC filter.
The nebula emits all of its light in isolated emission lines. The most prominent of these are the lines Hα, [OIII] and [SII], which were recorded exclusively to capture the image shown above. This is a "natural color" composition that is mixed so that the resulting colors come close to the visible spectrum of the human eye. The following mixture was used:
The Milky Way in Cygnus, zoom lens photograph.
Sharpless 119 in Hα, which is part of this image.
Exposure Data