The Vulcan Nebula (cataloged as WPS 46) is a faint deep-sky emission and reflection nebula situated roughly two degrees west of the famous spiral galaxies Messier 81 and Messier 82 in the constellation Ursa Major. Discovered and brought to prominence by amateur astrophotographers capturing ultra-deep exposure widefield integration data, the object is embedded within extensive integrated flux nebula (IFN) clouds, dust and ionized gas floating above the plane of the Milky Way that are lit up by ambient starlight and ionized by surrounding stars like TYC 4376-968-1. Because of its extremely low surface brightness, bringing out its faint blue-green oxygen structures and hydrogen-alpha filaments requires hundreds of hours of total integration time across multiple optical systems and dark-sky sites.
The Vulcan Nebula (cataloged as WPS 46) is a faint deep-sky emission and reflection nebula situated roughly two degrees west of the famous spiral galaxies Messier 81 and Messier 82 in the constellation Ursa Major. Discovered and brought to prominence by amateur astrophotographers capturing ultra-deep exposure widefield integration data, the object is embedded within extensive integrated flux nebula (IFN) clouds, dust and ionized gas floating above the plane of the Milky Way that are lit up by ambient starlight and ionized by surrounding stars like TYC 4376-968-1. Because of its extremely low surface brightness, bringing out its faint blue-green oxygen structures and hydrogen-alpha filaments requires hundreds of hours of total integration time across multiple optical systems and dark-sky sites.