NGC 7380
Wizard Nebula in Cepheus

10.1″ f/4.5, Mallincam DS432cTEC with 0.5 focal reducer and Astronomik UHC filter
Exposure = 10-18-25 sec, Live Stacked frames = 20-20-60 (100 total), Gain = 50 of 250

The Wizard Nebula, also known as Harry Potter and the Golden Snitch, is a fairly difficult object to locate visually; I had the gain up to maximum and 5 second exposures to get a faint hint of it. With longer exposures and 100 frames the beauty of this nebula really becomes apparent; the image above though required substantial data stretching and some colour adjustment was also applied. Various complex hues of orange, red, and grey and lots of dark obscuring areas create the impression of a wizard’s hat, pointy nose, outstretched dark hand and a bright “snitch” in the form of HIP 112324, the bright magnitude 6 star toward the upper right. The red and orange wavy portions of the nebula at the bottom give the impression of flowing wizard robes.

North at 10 o’clock, East at 7 o’clock