This is the second and last image from June 21, 2022. This core area of the Cave Nebula. The nebula is actually much larger than this image, but my field of view is focused on some of the core glowing red gas. There are many stars in this image since this is along the main section of the Milky Way galaxy. The individual image data was acquired from 2:23 am to 3:52 am. This was also shot with the Orion 8″ Astrograph using 3 minute exposures. More exposure time would show more of the red gas.

It was a long night – I didn’t get to bed until 5:00 am, but I was able to sleep until 11:30 am to make up for the all night session. The weather turns bad over the next few days and I’ll take a break from the imaging I’ve done over the last week or so. It has been really fun though and I’ve had much more success than I did a year ago.

Quote from Wikipedia

“Sh2-155 (also designated Caldwell 9, Sharpless 155 or S155) is a diffuse nebula in the constellation Cepheus, within a larger nebula complex containing emission, reflection, and dark nebulosity. It is widely known as the Cave Nebula, though that name was applied earlier to Ced 201, a different nebula in Cepheus. Sh2-155 is an ionized H II region with ongoing star formation activity,[1] at an estimated distance of 725 parsecs (2400 light-years) from Earth.[2][3]”