IFN - LBN 550 Nebula and Friends
High in the constellation of Cepheus, far above the bright band of the Milky Way, the sky is not empty, it is filled with dust. Whisper-thin clouds, almost invisible to the eye, drift across the heavens as part of what astronomers call the Integrated Flux Nebula (IFN).
At the center of this frame lies LBN 550, a dense, ochre-colored dust cloud catalogued in 1965 by Beverly Lynds in her Bright Nebula catalog. It sits some 850 light-years away, within the larger Cepheus Flare region. Around it, fainter wisps stretch outward, weaving into the surrounding network of high-latitude cirrus. Alongside it hide other catalogued fragments: LDN 1228 (from Lynds’ Dark Nebula catalog of 1962), LBN 552, and LBN 555, each a small piece of this larger, ghostly puzzle.
These are not nebulae illuminated by a single nearby star. Instead, their faint glow comes from the combined light of the entire Milky Way. Countless stars scatter their photons off microscopic grains of interstellar dust, producing a reflection so subtle that it hovers only a few percent above the night sky itself. Capturing it requires not just long hours of integration, but patience, restraint, and a willingness to chase whispers in the dark.
Scientifically, regions like these are fascinating. LDN 1228, about 700 light-years away, has been studied as a site of low-mass star formation, hiding protostars within its opaque folds. LBN 552 and LBN 555 are part of the vast Cepheus Flare molecular cloud complex, a structure extending several hundred light-years across. Together, these clouds mark some of the nearest sites of ongoing star birth beyond the better-known Orion region, making them a valuable laboratory for studying how stars and planetary systems emerge.
To me, though, they are more than catalog numbers. They are the faintest brushstrokes of the galaxy itself, painted across the high-latitude sky. Dust, light, and silence, stitched into a view that only emerges after long hours under the stars.
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Technical Info:
Optics : Takahashi FSQ106-EDX4 @ F3.6 @ 380 mm (RD645)
Camera : Moravian G3-61000 Pro
Filters : Chroma Unmounted - LRGB Filter Set - 50 mm
Mount : NYX 101 - Harmonic Gear Mount
Guiding: Moravian C3-OAG + SX Lodestar X2
Acquisition : Voyager 2.3.11
Exposure : L (1x1) - 82 x 300 6 Hours 50 Minutes
R (1x1) - 54 x 300 4 Hours 30 Minutes
G (1x1) - 49 x 300 4 Hours 05 Minutes
B (1x1) - 48 x 300 4 Hours
Gain - 0
Total Exposure: 19 Hours 25 Minutes
Processing : PixInsight 1.9.3 Lockhart (1646)
Date: 25.04.2025 - 02.05.2025 - 22.08.2025 - SQM ~21.20