The ancient astronomer Ptolemy already knew the constellation Cepheus, representing the king of mythical Ethiopia and the husband of Queen Cassiopeia and father of Andromeda. After a quarrel between the queen and the sea nymph Nereid, Poseidon, the god of the seas, became angry and sent a sea monster to destroy the Ethiopian kingdom. On the advice of the soothsayers, the parents sacrificed their daughter Andromeda to the sea monster. Bound to a rock, she was freed by Perseus and married. However, since the tale is not set in our meadows and groves, where " ... they lived happily together, and if they did not die, they still live here today ...", but in the world of ancient legends, they all made it to the night sky. Including the sea monster represented by the constellation of the Whale.
Although the legend is very impressive, the same cannot be said of the constellation Cepheus itself. There aren't many bright stars in it, and we hardly see it in the city. However, even in areas with dark skies, we may have a little trouble finding the constellation. A clue may be its house shape with a pointed roof, the tip of which points to an area near the North Pole.
Due to its location far from the plane of our Galaxy, which is rich in various astronomical objects, we won't find many of them here either. However...
There are huge molecular clouds about 1200 light years away. And at the edge of this cloud we find an object called the "Ghost nebula", or "ghost nebula". It's a faint object, but really beautiful in the photo, and it's labeled VdB141 or Sh2-136. The history of its discovery, or rather discoveries, is also interesting. When the American astronomer Stewart Sharpless was searching the photographic plates of the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey from the 48" Schmidt telescope, he discovered an emission nebula which he labeled Sh 2-136 and published in a catalogue in 1959. In 1962, Beverly T. Lynds published a "Catalogue of Dark Nebulae", which included the nebula she found on the "National Geographic Palomar Observatory Sky Atlas" photographic plates. This nebula is listed here as LDN 1177. And in 1966 Sidney van den Bergh searched for reflective nebulae on the "Palomar Sky Survey" photographic plates. He identified one of them around the star BD+67 1300 as vdB 141 and included it in his "Catalogue of Reflection Nebulae".
The nebula is thought to be a globule 2 light years in diameter. The yellow-brown colour of the nebula is caused by reflected light from the stars hidden inside. The star associated with the reflection nebula indB 141 is BD+67 1300 and is of spectral type G8. Measurements by the Gaia spacecraft show it to be 1120 light years away and moving towards us at 32 km/s. However, there are other stars inside this molecular cloud, as it is a star-forming region. The nebula is part of the molecular cloud LDN 1177, which in turn is part of a large complex of molecular clouds called the "Cepheus Flare Region".
"The author of the winning image of the Czech Astrophotography of the Month competition in January 2025, Slovak astrophotographer Pavol Kollarik, brought us an amazing view into the mysterious depths of the mysterious universe. Certainly not only on behalf of the jury, but also on behalf of all lovers of space or just mysterious and beautiful images, we can thank the author and wish him many more similar images," said for the jury of the CMA Marcel Bělík from the Observatory in Úpice.
Author: Pavol Kollarik
Name: VdB141
Location: Šenkovice, SR
Date: 21. 1. 2025
Sensor: ASI2600 FLI 16803, LRGB
Optics: ASA N300 MM500, 4 @ 1918mm
Installation: ddm85
Description: L: 479×300 ASI, 274x300FLI bin1x1, 146x200sFLI bin2x2, RGB22x300FLI
You can see the winning images in each month and more information at http://www.astro.cz/cam/.
Czech Astronomical Society/ gnews - RoZ
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