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A mysterious rose

Luigi La Bella from Melilli, Italy

Sharpless 2–174, also known as the Rose of Valentine, is a faint emission nebula about 1,400 light-years away in the constellation Cepheus. It was first thought to be a planetary nebula abandoned by its once-central white dwarf, GD 561 (just below the bright star near the object’s pronounced blue edge). But it may also be an unrelated cloud of ambient interstellar material ionized by GD 561. This image combines 27 hours of HOO exposure using a 5-inch f/7 refractor and a one-shot-color camera.