NGC 7129 - A Small Reflection in a Rich Field

Located some 3,300 light-years in the constellation Cepheus is a small reflection nebula, NGC 7129, illuminated by a young star cluster. The interesting shape, often described as a rosebud, was produced when hot young stars blew a bubble in the very large molecular cloud in this region. To make things more interesting, this region also contains lots of hydrogen, enough to produce faint Ha emission nebulae.

I have a love-hate relationship with processing molecular clouds with both reflection and emission nebulae as they have conflicting processing techniques when highlighting them. Because of this the final result depends on the preference of the astrophotographer. In trying to set a balance I went with showing a bit more Ha. Perhaps if I were in a dark site with Bortle 3 or lower skies I would have balanced it differently. The reflection nebula has a blue hue and shows lots of interesting structure caused by the solar winds streaming outward against the molecular cloud.

Lastly, the region is rich in stars of all types. If you have been following me, you know I like stars so I left many of them. However, I did do some reduction using BlurXTerminator on the RGB stars and did not use the Luminosity data for the stars.

High Quality:

https://www.astrobin.com/01awih/?nc=collection&nce=712

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NGC 7129 - A Small Reflection in a Rich Field

Dates: 6-4-24, 6-7, 6-9, 6-10, 6-12, 6-13, 6-15, 6-24, 6-27
Camera: ZWO ASI1600MM-Pro
Telescope: Astro-Tech AT115EDT 115mm Refractor Telescope
Barlow: None
Focal Length: 805mm (644mm w/ FR)
f/7
Focal Reducer: 0.8x AstroTech Field Flatterner/Focal Reducer
Mount: Orion Sirius
Filter Wheel: ZWO
EFW 8 x 1.25"
Filter: Antlia Ha; ZWO L, R, G, B
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Autoguiding: ASI120 Mini attached to an Agena 50mm Guide Scope/ZWO 60mm Guidescope
Exposure: L 326 x 90, Ha 174 x 300, R 114 x 90, G 113 x 90, B 107 x 90 (Total 30h 58")
Gain: 139
Offset 20
Sensor Temp: 0 C
Processing: NINA, PixInsight, Photoshop, BlurXTerminator, StarXTerminator, NoiseXTerminator, GraXpert, Bill Blanshan Color Masks, Bill Blanshan Stretching, Topaz Denoise.