Gear:

Telescope: Stellarvue SVX130T-R
Mount: Software Bisque Paramount MX
Camera: Player One Poseidon-M Pro
Filter: Antlia Pro 3nm OIII • Antlia Edge 4.5nm Ha • Antlia Pro 3nm SII
Accessories: 3.5" Feathertouch • Stellarvue SFFRX-130140
Guiding: Player One FHD-OAG MAX • Player One Ceres-462M • PHD2
Software: Photoshop • PixInsight • TheSkyX • Starkeeper Voyager

Description:

NGC 7822 hangs in the northern sky like a broken cosmic question mark, but the most dramatic activity unfolds in its crowded, **turbulent** heart.[1] Located in the constellation Cepheus at roughly 2,900 light-years from Earth, this young star-forming complex spans about 3 degrees on the sky, corresponding to a physical size near 150 light-years at that distance.[1][2] Long-exposure images that isolate the central portion reveal a hollowed-out cavity of glowing hydrogen framed by jagged pillars and dark filaments, a storm front of ionized gas and dust sculpted by the energy of newborn stars.[1]

At the core lies the open cluster Berkeley 59, only a few million years old, embedded within the emission region Sharpless 171 that forms the bright center of NGC 7822.[1][2] Its dominant member, the star BD+66 1673, is an O-type eclipsing binary with a surface temperature of about 45,000 K and a luminosity roughly 100,000 times that of the Sun, making it one of the hottest stars discovered within about 1 kiloparsec of our Solar System.[2] Intense ultraviolet radiation from this powerhouse ionizes vast swaths of hydrogen gas, causing the nebula to glow while simultaneously eroding nearby clouds into curling ridges, elephant trunks, and needle-like spires that all seem to bend away from their blinding source.[1]

Sources:

[1] constellation-guide.com/question-mark-nebula-ngc-7822/
[2] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_7822

Distance: 2,900 light-years
Size: 150 light-years

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Star Forming Regions

Across a span of many light-years in the central zone, dense knots and globules of gas still cradle infant stars, even as the fierce winds and radiation from Berkeley 59 threaten to strip their birth cocoons away.[1][2] Astronomers estimate that the younger components of the complex are no more than a few million years old, so NGC 7822's core is a stellar nursery in its earliest, most violent phase, already busy unmaking the cold clouds that created it.[1][2] In deep images focused on the center, the region appears as a bright-edged hollow rimmed by dark lanes and knotted filaments, hinting at hundreds of forming solar systems still hidden within the glow of this cosmic question mark.[1]

Location in the Night Sky

(Star Chart created using PixInsight)

All Images    Craig Sherris