I thin I have two versions of this done from the telescope at SRO in California. I really liked those images but this scope has a much winder field of view and (almost) fits the whole nebula in. I probably should have framed it just a bit over to the right but it’s hard to know that when you can’t really see the faint details in a single sub.

This is an emission nebula in Cepheus (it seems like everything from the first half the night is in Cepheus at the moment. Cepheus is to fall what Cygnus is to summer: the place where everything is.

The nebula is about 10,000 light years away so it must be huge in an absolute sense to be this large in our sky. Sources report it as being about 250 light years across.

Don’t feel bad if you don’t see a lion in this. With this much exposure time and processing that enhances the fainter areas, the “lion” gets a bit obscured.

This is 38h 51m of HOOSY data. For all the technical details, see astrobin.