This is an image of the Iris Nebula, captured from Jeff’s backyard in March of 2025. The Iris is a small section of the immense molecular cloud positioned between us and the center of our galaxy. The black background is not the blackness of deep space but rather a light-absorbing molecular cloud that forms a torus around our galaxy’s center, and without which the intense gamma radiation from Sagitarius A, the black hole at the center of our Milky Way Galaxy, would exterminate life on our planet in short order. The Iris, also known as NGC 7073, is a reflection Nebula in the constellation Cepheus about 1.300 light-years from Earth. It is illuminated by the young, brightly burning, blue-white, giant star HD 200775, and is about six light-years across.

Jeff captured this image in March 2025 using an Askar 107PHQ telescope and a ZWO ASI2600MC-Pro, with the sensor cooled to -20˚C. It is a visual frequency image compiled from about six hours of five-minute exposures.