Sharpless 132, IC 1396 and Sharpless 129

Sharpless 132 (left), IC 1396 (middle) and Sharpless 129 (right) are the most striking HII regions in the constellation of Cepheus. The bright orange star near the center is mu Cephei, a M1 supergiant nearly 6,000 light-years away. The second orange star on the left, zeta Cephei, is much closer, only about 900 light-years away from earth. The bluish star north-west of zeta Cephei is delta Cephei. It is approximately as far away as zeta Cephei. The bright star in the upper right corner is alpha Cephei, only 49 light-years away. Three faint HII regions can be identified north of the line connecting zeta and delta Cep. Sharpless 135 is the brightest of them located closely to delta Cep. To the right follows LBN 486, Sharpless 134 is Sharpless 135. IC 1396 is a large emission nebula illuminated by a single star – the blue supergiant HD206267 located in the center of the circular cloud. Star formation proceeds in the dark globules, the most famous of which is the Elephant’s trunk on the western side of IC 1396. IC 1396 is only a small part of a huge, mostly invisible gas cloud in a distance of about 2,700 light-years.