Iris nebula, known as NGC 7023, is a reflection/dark nebula located in constellation Cepheus. It’s 1300 light years far from the Solar system and it has 6 light years in diameter. In the middle of the nebula rules so called baby star, which is only few thousand years old. The star was created partially from the gas which is now illuminated.

The picture was taken under dark skies of Greek island Karpathos during my 2019 expedition. Unfortunately, the weather was very bad. There wasn’t a single cloud on the sky, but it was extremely windy, therefore I got only one single steady night and this night I wanted to capture also other deep space objects. Therefore the picture is a stack of only 37 pictures, each 2 minutes long.

Technical details:

TelescopeNewton 150/600 mm
Aperture150 mm
Focal length630 mm
MountAvalon M-Zero
AutoguidingZWO 174MM, Guidescope 30 mm
CameraZWO 071 Pro @-5°C
CorrectorExplore Scientific HR
FiltersAstronomik L-1 - UV IR Block Filter
Exposure37x120s, Gain 94, bin 1x1,
Date2019-09-03