The Helping Hand

[Andy Elliott]

LDN1355, the ’Helping Hand’ Nebula in Cassiopeia, together with neighbouring LDN1357 and LDN1358 are areas of dark nebulosity in he constellation of Cassiopeia. Below of the “palm” of the helping hand is a blue reflective nebula (VdB 9) which is illuminated by the star SU Cas. Towards middle bottom edge of the image there is another reflective nebula VdB 7 with a hint of red & blue, surrounding a variable star RZ Cas. However, RZ Cas is not the source of the illumination for VdB 7; rather it is illuminated by a much dimmer 11th mag star nearby.

Acquisition details and the full res image is here: https://app.astrobin.com/i/5miptd?r=0

Thanks for looking.

 

[JimFox]

This is so cool Andy! Love the look of it, and I really like finding out a new to me DSO.

 

[Mike Lewis]

Nice - gotta get into some of these amazing dark nebulae myself...

ML