IC 59 & IC 63 — Ghost of Cassiopeia

About This Image

A summer nebula target I've been wanting to tackle. Captured with a 130mm APO refractor using RGB and hydrogen-alpha filters — 10 hours total from Allenford. Still a work in progress; I hope to add more time with the 11" scope to bring out more detail. IC 59 and IC 63 lie about 550 light-years from Earth in Cassiopeia, forming a pair of cometary-shaped nebulae — both reflection and emission in nature. IC 63 is the brighter of the two, with a well-defined ionization front driven by its close proximity to Gamma Cassiopeiae (γ Cas). IC 59 sits farther away and lacks that ionization front, giving it a softer, more diffuse appearance. γ Cas is an extraordinary star — a blazing blue-white variable radiating the energy of roughly 34,000 Suns and spinning at around 1.6 million km/h. Its intense ultraviolet radiation ionizes the hydrogen in IC 63, producing the deep red emission glow, while scattered blue starlight from surrounding dust adds the ghostly cool-blue tint that earns IC 63 its nickname: the Ghost of Cassiopeia.