Greg

Thanks Greg, I'm missing a lot as I never get notifications.. and I've been negligent of posting here as well.

Terri

Greg

The reflection nebula IC59 and IC63 show blueish in the images due to illumination by Gamma Cas, while the entire region is suffused by SH2-185, a large cloud of hydrogen gas.    The intense radiation from Gamma Cas, a bright variable star in our skies has a magnitude ranging from 1.6 to 3.0, and currently shining at magnitude 2.2.   Gamma Cas is a sub-giant star which is nearing the end of the hydrogen fusing portion of its life, after which it will become a giant star, when inward pressure moves it's outer layers to a new point of equilibrium where it will fuse helium.  Gamma Cas has 17 times the mass of the Sun and radiates 34,000 times the Sun's energy!  Gamma Cas is completing this main sequence phase of its lifetime in only 8 million years!   At 25,000K at its outer layers, Gamma Cas shines blue.  Gamma Cas, along with IC59 and IC63 are approximately 550 light years from our solar system.   The two emission + reflection nebula, IC59 and IC63, are approximately 10 ly across.    Both the primary image and an annotated version are below.

I shot these with TEC140 scope with ASI6200 mono camera with Chroma broadband and 3nm Ha filters.    I have about 3 hours in Ha and an hour each in R,G and B.   I could use more time, maybe in out years, with the R,G, and B to boost the reflection components.