NGC 7380 and The Wizard Nebula Astrophotography | 97 Hours
NGC 7380 is an open cluster located about 8,000 light-years away in Cepheus. It rises high in the sky and can be imaged during the Summer and Fall seasons. The cluster is surrounded by nebulous gas. This gas, known as Sh2-142, gives the nebula the shape of a medieval wizard.
Object Designation: NGC 7380, Sh2-142, Cr 452
Also known as: The Wizard Nebula
Constellation: Cepheus
Object type: Emission Nebula
Distance: 8,000 light-years away
Magnitude: 7.2
Discovered in: 1787 by Caroline Herschel
Spanning over 5 full moons, NGC 7380 was captured by NASA in 2020 with WISE, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer mission.
What you can see on the right is a mosaic of infrared images taken by WISE.
The cluster within the nebulosity is made up of stars that are believed to have been formed in the past 5 million years. Just a few million years is actually relatively young when it comes to outer space.
The Wizard Nebula is one of the most popular objects for astrophotographers who like doing starless versions of their images.
You can see on the left an image of the nebula without any stars, allowing you to really contemplate this object on a different level.
Starless images are easily achieved using a plugin called StarXTerminator.
The Wizard Nebula - 97 Hours Astrophotography
October-December 2024
Using my refractor telescope and monochrome camera from Starfront Observatories in Texas, I decided to spend many nights capturing just the Wizard Nebula to get a very nice and clean result. After spending 4 hours in RGB for the stars, 51 hours on HA and 42 hours on OIII, I decided it was enough to process!
The data is very good, especially coming from a Bortle 1/2 site and from the 60+ Megapixel camera. Processing was more difficult than I thought it would be, but the result is great and I might give it another go at some point in the future! I especially like the blue streams visible to the left.
Click the picture to see it in full resolution!
Learn how to process your data like this with our PixInsight processing guides
GEAR USED:
Camera: QHY600M
Telescope: Stellarvue SVX130
Mount: 10Micron GM1000 HPS
Accessories: Moonlite Nitecrawler focuser / Pegasus Astro Ultimate Powerbox
Processing: Pixinsight with RC-Astro plugins, final touches in Skylum Luminar Neo
ACQUISITION DETAILS:
Total Exposure Time: 97 hours
Exposure Time per frame: 10 minutes
Filters: Chroma 3nm S/H/O
Gain: 56
The Wizard Nebula Astrophotography with a Dual-band Filter
September 2023
A year later, it was once again time to image the Wizard Nebula. We used a different dual-band filter from Askar, and imaged the object from our Bortle 9 backyard. We this time decided to process it differently so that it would turn out more yellow/blue instead of fully red.
Camera: ZWO ASI2600MC-Duo
Telescope: Askar FRA500 with f/3.9 Reducer
Mount: ZWO AM3
Guiding: Built into camera
Accessories: ZWO ASIAir Plus
Power: Jackery Lithium Battery
Processing: Pixinsight, with RC-Astro plugins. Final Touches in Luminar Neo
ACQUISITION DETAILS:
Total Exposure Time: 10 hours
Exposure Time per frame: 10 minutes
Filters: Askar 6nm Color Magic H+O Filter
Gain: 26
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The Wizard Nebula with the L-Ultimate Narrowband Filter
September 2022
In 2022, we decided to spend 15 hours imaging the Wizard Nebula from our backyard.
We wanted to see what type of result we would get if we used a color camera and the new Optolong L-Ultimate 3nm dual-band filter.
This filter only allows the OIII and HA emission lines through. It blocks all other light pollution emission lines, including artificial light. Unlike its predecessors (the L-eNhance and L-eXtreme), the L-Ultimate is 3nm instead of 7nm, giving your image more contrast, and less unwanted artifacts around bright stars.
We have a written review about the L-Ultimate, as well as a video you can watch to see more examples of images taken with this filter!
Click the image to see it in higher resolution
Camera: QHY600C
Telescope: Radian 75
Mount: ZWO AM5
Guiding: ZWO ASI 290MM Mini
Accessories: Pegasus Astro Pocket Powerbox
Power: Jackery Lithium Battery
Processing: Pixinsight
ACQUISITION DETAILS:
Total Exposure Time: 15 hours
Exposure Time per frame: 10 minutes
Filters: Optolong L-Ultimate
Gain: 26
The Wizard Nebula with a Newtonian Telescope
October 2019
We used our trusty 8" Newtonian telescope and our ZWO ASI 1600MM-Pro cooled camera to image the Wizard. Sadly, on that night, we had some troubles with a cable for the guiding camera. We were forced to image this target un-guided and decided to take 2-minute exposures instead of our usual 3 minutes for this kind of object. We spent a total of 1 hour and 22 minutes doing narrowband photography, with 15 frames for Ha and 13 frames for each of the two other narrowband filters. Our camera was cooled down to -20C. You can see the result of each filter later in this post.
Below is our image of the Wizard Nebula. We are pretty happy with it although we really are a bit angry that our guiding could not work that night. We know it would have made a significant impact on the end result, and perhaps would have made the background much cleaner.
Scroll down for more details about this deep-sky object.
NGC 7380 (HaSIIOIII), with the ASI1600MM
GEAR USED:
Camera: ZWO ASI 1600mm Pro Mono
Telescope: 8" Newtonian
Mount: Atlas EQ-G motorized Mount
Guiding: None (On a strike)
Acquisition: ZWO ASIAIR
Processing: Pixinsight
ACQUISITION DETAILS:
Total Exposure Time: 1 hour and 22 minutes
Exposure Time per frame: 2 minutes
Filters: Ha (30 min) / SII (26 min) / OIII (26 min)
Gain: 139
Locating NGC 7380
With a magnitude of 7.2, the Wizard Nebula is not that faint but because it is mostly made of Hydrogen Alpha and Oxygen, spotting it with the naked eye or even small instruments is not possible. An OIII filter will definitely help, but even then, it will not look impressive. You will of course need to be under a very dark site to hope seeing the Wizard's gases or its cluster.
NGC 7380 lies in the constellation of Cepheus, and is pretty close to Cassiopeia's "right" star when looking at the "W" shape. The best way to find it is to start from that star, and slowly drift towards Cepheus' southern stars.
Cool Facts
Discovered by William Herschel's sister, Caroline
Is disappearing rapidly and will become invisible in "just" a few million years from now
Spans about 100 light-years in diameter
Single Shot & Processing of NGC 7380
With the Newtonian and ASI1600MM
Similar to our image of the Bubble Nebula or the North America Nebula, we used our three narrowband filters to capture this target and processed it with a Hubble Palette color mapping.
Below you can see, from left to right, the stacked images for the Hydrogen Alpha filter, the Sulfur II filter, and the Oxygen III filter.
The Wizard Nebula, stacked images for Ha/SII/OIII
The Hydrogen Alpha filter is the one that reveals the most gases, and, as often, the Sulfur II filter is the most "boring" of the three. We almost wanted to image the Wizard in Bicolor (HA and OIII) but ended up adding Sulfur as well just to be safe.
Processing NGC 7380 was not too bad, we had trouble trying to bring down the noise in the background, most likely because the unguided frames weren't as neat as if they were guided, but we did what we could and ended up with a great result. We might add more to it in the future, as 1 hour and 22 minutes of total exposure isn't really enough for this type of nebula.
Final Thoughts
The Wizard Nebula might not be a great object to observe, but it is a beautiful and impressive target to photograph! Although it is best captured with a monochrome camera in narrowband, there are plenty of images online from people who achieved great results with a simple DSLR camera! If you are a beginner astrophotographer and are looking for a bit of a challenge, give NGC 7380 a go! Make sure to add your image to the comment section below so that we may see your work and perhaps add it to the post as a comparison with ours!
If you'd rather image something different but aren't sure what to pick, check out our guides for the best Astrophotography targets for each season.
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