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Distance: 3,300 Light Years
Magnitude: 11.5
Size: 7×7 Arc-minutes
Age: Approx. 1 million years
Telescope: Takahashi TOA-130
Camera: QSI 683
Mount: AP 1100
Exposures: L 19×600 Bin 1, RGB 21×300 Bin 2
NGC 7129 is a reflection nebula in the constellation Cepheus. The entire nebula is set amongst a large dusty region of space with active star formation. NGC 7129 also contains several Herbig-Haro objects and molecular outflows. These HH objects are barely visible in my image with one of them seen at the top left of the reflection nebula and three more at the lower right. The largest of the three is the crescent shaped object named Herbig-Haro 103. The star cluster in the center of the image is responsible for illuminating the surrounding dust that comprises the reflection nebula. Several stars in this cluster have circumstellar disks orbiting them. These are planets in the making! IC 5132 and IC 5133 are the smaller bright nebula just above NGC 7129. LDN 1183 is the dusty area surrounding the reflection nebula. Open star cluster NGC 7142 is partially seen at the bottom left.
I decided to try this object from my home in a Bortle 6 zone. I really didn’t know what to expect since this was a reflection nebula set inside of a dark dusty nebula. I was pleasantly surprised at the results even though the dark areas don’t really “pop” from the black sky as they would from a dark site.
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