By a curious coincidence, the reflection nebula LBN 437, often called the Gecko Nebula for its unusual shape, is located in the constellation Lacerta (The Lizard). It lies about 450 light-years from Earth. The nebula consists of several dark, unilluminated clouds, glowing regions of ionized gas, and small reflection nebulae illuminated by nearby stars. This stardust forms the raw material for future star formation, meaning that while the nebula appears dark now, it could eventually give birth to new stars.
LBN 437 is also associated with the much larger emission nebula Sh2-126, which stretches across the same region of the sky and adds a touch of red to the frame.
The image data was acquired from a balcony under Bortle 7 skies (an area with significant light pollution)
Gear I used:
- Tamron 300mm f/2.8 telephoto lens wide-open
- Atik 414EX monochrome camera with Baader Planetarium UHC-S, H-alpha 7nm and O-III 8.5nm filters
- Nikon D5100 DSLR camera
- Celestron CG5 equatorial mount with Asterion/EQStar upgrade kit (belt mod)
Exposure details:
- 39x600s with Baader H-alpha 7nm filter (6.6hrs total exposure)
- 67x300s with Baader UHC-S filter (5.7hrs total)
- 32x420s with Baader O-III filter (3.8hrs total)
- 50x30s were captured with Nikon D5100 for star color
It’s interesting to see how the nebula appears in different filters. It stands out clearly in the wideband UHC-S and narrowband OIII filters, but almost disappears in the H-alpha filter, leaving only the Sh2-136 hydrogen nebula visible in the background.
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| LBN 437 nebula in UHC-S filter |
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Gecko Nebula in O-III filter
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I honestly don’t know why they call this the Gecko Nebula - to me, it looks more like a salamander. 😄
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