NGC 7129 is foremost a reflection nebula that contains a very young open star cluster, located in the direction of the constellation Cepheus, the ancient King of Aethiopia (modern Ethiopia region). The star cluster is very young at merely one million years old, or in human life terms, only an hour or two old! This is indeed a stellar nursery of about 130 stars. The nebula surrounding this young cluster is known as the Rosebud Nebula since it resembles the shape of a young, unopened rose visually through a telescope. The star cluster both illuminates and disturbs various parts of the nebula, causing its shape and continued evolution as the young stars begin their infancy.

Dedication: I dedicate this image of the blue Rosebud Nebula to my paternal grandmother, Clara Margaret Biggs, who lived for almost 98 years. Four things in life brought my Grandma Clara pure joy – her family, her faith, her gardening, and her amazing cooking. One thing I reflect on often about Grandma, is her talented green thumb. She grew most of her own vegetables and several fruits. We often found her working in her flower gardens including caring for her favorite flowering bush, the rose. Grandma shared her faith freqently, and her hope that when she reached paradise, she might have a bush of blue roses. She never experienced cultivating a blue rose here on earth, though, I hope she is now surrounded by blue roses of the heavenly type, perhaps including this blue Rosebud Nebula.

The Rosebud Nebula is a small portion of a larger massive cloud of gas and dust that could ultimately create thousands of Sun-like stars. Close inspection of the thousands of stars across the entire image, shows a reddish tint in most of the stars, indicating that they are beyond and behind the nebulosity, and that the massive cloud of gas and dust shifts their true color like looking through a red filter. Blue and white stars in this image are likely nearby, between us and the nebula.

The young cluster is 10 light years across or visually about one quarter the size of the full moon. It has blown a bubble through the nebula, the edges of which are seen here to appear as a pink boundary. Stars near the center of the nebula have been detected sending out jets of supersonic gas into the surrounding cloud, heating it and causing visible boundaries of gas and dust to form. There are also two additional reflection nebulae, one to the left and one below, each containing several newly formed young stars. In a few million or tens of millions of years, as the star cluster begins to mature, individual stars begin drifting away from each other, as most likely happened with our own sun.

The nebula contains not only reflection nebulae (blue to white areas), but also emission nebulae (orange, pink, and red areas), as well as dark nebulae (black) areas. An interesting feature of the Rosebud Nebula is that these red filaments of material have several that are crescent in shape! These indicates areas of new star formation where stars are not yet visible; these stars are still in the womb so to speak. Also interesting is the clearly visible black areas called dark nebulae where the interstellar, molecular clouds are so dense that they obscures visible light emitted from stars behind. While these dark areas are particularly cold and dense, stars and other objects beyond are clearly visible in radio or infrared wavelengths of light.

The below image shows the Rosebud Nebula without foreground and background stars. Hover over the image to see the stars fade back into view. Note the additional nebulosity of background gas and dust clouds!

The 2nd image below shows the Rosebud Nebula background nebulosity enhanced. Hover over the image to see annotations!