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The Wizard Nebula

NGC 7380 and Sh2-142, in Cepheus  ·  3.2 hours in one night, September 2026

The Wizard Nebula, NGC 7380 — a glowing pink and white cloud carved by dark pillars of dust, in a field of orange, white and blue stars

The Wizard Nebula (NGC 7380, Sh2-142), HOO with true-colour stars  ·  ©2026 Peter F. Wingard  ·  @see_theShow

Caroline Herschel’s cluster

The Wizard Nebula, NGC 7380 in Cepheus, about 7,200 light-years away in the Perseus arm of the Milky Way. Caroline Herschel found the star cluster at its heart in 1787, one of the first women to discover deep-sky objects. The cluster is only about 5 million years old, and its hottest stars are the ones lighting the whole cloud and carving it into the shape that gives it the name: a robed figure leaning over, with the dark pillars and globules of dust being eaten away by the light. The glowing gas is about 110 light-years across.

This one comes from the Celestron Origin through an Antlia Triband filter, split into hydrogen and oxygen (HOO). The stars are the new part: the same subs were also stacked as ordinary colour and those stars were put back in, so they show their real colours instead of the red-and-cyan HOO stars usually give you. The night also had a wrapped power cable drag the scope off target a few times; 49 frames were thrown out and 777 kept.

Acquisition

Telescope
Celestron Origin — RASA 6″ f/2.2, 335 mm
Camera
Origin678C one-shot colour (IMX678) — ISO 1000, uncooled
Filter
Antlia Triband RGB Ultra — processed as HOO, stars from a separate true-colour stack
Framing
2.46″/pixel
Integration
777 × 15s = 3.2 hours, nine Origin sessions in one night — 49 subs culled after a cable wrap
Dates
September 26–27, 2026
Location
My backyard site at The Star Farm in Camden, South Carolina — Bortle 4
Processing
Stacked in Siril, processed in PixInsight

How it was made

The capture blog →See the legacy gallery →