Sh2-150 in Cepheus

Orientation: North is to the right and east is up. Click for full-screen view.

The image shows the rather exactly north-south oriented emission nebula Sh2-150 that is acompanied by the blue reflection nebula vdB 154 (to the right in this image) and some surrounding dark and bright nebulae. Sharpless 150 is ionized by two stars - 26 Cep and HD 213405 - the brightest blue stars below the nebula in this image. Another Sharpless object (Sh2-145) is partially in this field in the lower left. There are several dark nebulae in this field - LDN 1206, 1207, 1208, 1209, 1214. There is also a small white fan-shaped RN nebula (RNO 142) visible just blow Sharpless 150.

This nebula complex is located about 2,900 light years distant in the constellation Cepheus.

Cepheus Center - Wolf's Cave Nebula and Environment, telelens photograph.
Sh2-150 in Cepheus in Hα, which is part of this image.

Exposure Data

Instruments: 125mm f/3.8 Wright-Newtonian
Exposures: Color: 37 x 5 min; Hα: 87 x 10 min
Cameras: Color: OMEGON Pro veTEC 571c Color; Hα: ZWO ASI1600MM Pro Mono
Dates: October 24, 2021 - August 5, 2022 (5 nights)
Locations: Color: Steyersberger Schwaig, Lower Austria; Hα: Floridsdorf, Vienna
Conditions: Color: SQM-L sky brightness 21.1->21.3 mag/arcsec², seeing 4", temperature 16°C, low wind, low humidity
Autoguider: Lacerta MGEN
Enhancement: File selection and dark/flat calibration, star alignment and image integration, background flattening, deconvolution, non-linearization, noise reduction, star-background separation, star size reduction, local contrast enhancement, color and narrowband blending, re-adding of the stars
Notes: A combination of Hα narrowband exposures taken in my backyard and one-shot color exposures taken at a dark site in the Alps in the summer of 2022.