Vulpecula is latin name for Little Fox constellation. It is little and contains no bright stars. It is placed nearby Swan constellation in the pretty bright region of Milky Way. Well known M27 Dumbbell planetary nebula is in the Little Fox constellation and actually not much more. But if you look there and stay for over eleven hours you may notice some very faint nebulosities. Of course not look with an eye, but telescope with connected camera instead.
In the center of the picture there is NGC6823 star open cluster. It is placed about 6000 light years away. If you point your there telescope, even large, you will notice a bunch of young, blue stars and nothing more. These stars are about two million years old, so they are pretty young. The faint, surrounding nebula is called NGC6820 (or Sharpless 86) and is typical hydrogen emission nebula (hence its red color). It contains several dark globules. And that is pretty much all about it, no bells and whistles.
Oh…
Below the picture center and little to the right there is a tiny emission cometary nebula denominated GN 19.40.3 (aka GM1-26). When you enlarge the picture you will spot small comet like shape – but it is not a comet at all.
Oh…
The total exposure time was 11 hours – it is my new personal record. Picture has been exposed during three nights. I practice my patience 🙂 Setup as usual – GSO 6″ F5 newtonian with 0.9x field flattener and modded Canon 450D at ISO800. 5 minutes subexposures.
Clear skies!
