The Wizard Nebula is a diffuse nebula surrounding the developing open star cluster NGC 7380. It spans about 60 light years and lies within our Milky Way Galaxy, around 7,000 light years away in the constellation of Cepheus. It is moving towards us at about 34 km/s.

This kind of nebula is the birthplace of stars, which are formed when very diffuse molecular clouds collapse under their own gravity, often due to the influence of a nearby supernova explosion. The cloud collapses and fragments, sometimes forming hundreds of new stars. The newly-formed stars ionize the surrounding gas to produce an emission nebula.

In this case, the stars of NGC 7380 have emerged from its natal cloud some 5 million years or so ago, making it a relatively young cluster. Although the nebula may last only a few million years, some of the stars being formed may outlive our Sun.

The Wizard Nebula is ionized by the binary star HD 215835 (DH Cephei), together with the many young energetic stars within the cluster. They make the nebula that surrounds them glow and their winds and radiation sculpt clouds of gas and dust into the mountainous ridges seen here.

This is a narrowband image that uses Hα, OIII and SII (ionised sulphur) filters to pick out the different ionised gas clouds. Our view is along the plane of The Milky Way, hence many stars in this image are not actually part of The Wizard Nebula.