APOD: 2020 September 4 – The Wizard Nebula

Explanation:

Open star cluster NGC 7380 is still embedded in
its natal cloud
of interstellar gas and dust popularly known as the
Wizard Nebula.

Seen on the left, with foreground and background stars
along the
plane of our Milky Way galaxy
it lies some 8,000 light-years distant, toward the constellation
Cepheus.

In apparent size on the sky, a full moon would cover
the 4 million year
young
cluster and associated nebula, normally
much too faint to be seen by eye.

Made with telescope and camera firmly planted on Earth,
the image reveals multi light-year sized shapes and structures
of cosmic gas and dust within the Wizard though, in a color palette made
popular in Hubble
Space Telescope images.

Recorded with narrowband filters, the visible wavelength light
from the nebula’s hydrogen, oxygen, and sulfur atoms is transformed
into green, blue, and red colors in the
final digital composite.