This is IC1396. It is a very large but faint HII region which is cut across by dark molecular clouds. Notice the decrease in background star density from the upper edge to the lower left of the frame. The bright star just below the top edge is Mu Cephei. The small black cloud at the five o'clock position from Mu is B161, Barnard catalog of dark nebula. Continuing in this direction you can see another tadpole shaped dark cloud extending down to a black head, B365. There are 4 other Barnard catalog objects in this image. You can find them by looking at the Uranometria 2000.0 star atlas on map 57. North is up in this image. To see some details near the center of the image click here.

---

|More Photos|Previous Photos |

---

| Back to Astronomical Image index |