Wizard Nebula (NGC 7380)
A young cluster of stars in Cepheus inside the glowing cloud it lit. The cluster is about 9 million years old, and its light shapes the gas into a figure with a pointed hat.
Nebula and star cluster in Cepheus.
Can you see it from Guyana?
From Georgetown (6.8° N) it climbs to 39° above the northern horizon at its highest; from Lethem (3.4° N), to 35° above the northern horizon. It is highest at midnight on the night of 31 Aug, in the middle of its season. The page works out tonight's rise, highest point and set for both towns in Guyana time (UTC-4), and where the Moon is.
What you'll see
- Your eyes: Not visible to the eye. It lies 10.6° west of Caph.
- 10x50 binoculars: A small group of stars; the nebula needs a filter.
- A small telescope (80 to 100 mm): The cluster is easy at low power; a UHC or OIII filter shows the glow around it.
- A camera: Spans about 40% of an APS-C frame at 1,500 mm (field 0.9° × 0.6°); needs a tracking mount. An H-alpha-sensitive (modified) camera brings out its red glow.
How big, how bright, how far
- Size on the sky: 25′ × 20′, 80% of the Moon's width (the Moon is about 31′ wide).
- Distance: 8,700 light-years. The light reaching your eye left it about 8,700 years ago.
- True size: 63 light-years across its catalogued outline; light crosses it in 63 years.
Apparent size from OpenNGC (Mattia Verga), CC-BY-SA-4.0.
What it is made of
- Type
- Emission nebula with a young cluster
- Mass
- About 1,310 times the Sun's mass, in the stars of its cluster NGC 7380
- Age
- About 9.2 million years (range 5.5 million years to 14 million years), the age of NGC 7380
What is in it, not measured:
- Ionised hydrogen: glows red where hot stars light it
- Helium and heavier gases: with traces of oxygen, nitrogen and sulphur
- Dust: in dark lanes
- Young hot stars: that light it
How we know: Distance from Gaia parallaxes of the stars of NGC 7380, the cluster inside it: Hunt & Reffert 2024, A&A 686, A42 (Gaia DR3 cluster catalogue, VizieR J/A+A/686/A42), retrieved 2026-10-21: NGC 7380 2,657 pc; statistical 8,620-8,711 ly (16th-84th percentile); Gaia DR3 parallax zero-point systematics (about 0.02 mas) add about 5%. True size: the apparent size times the distance (apparent size: OpenNGC (Mattia Verga, CC BY-SA 4.0), commit 4e2398a2). Mass: Hunt & Reffert 2024, A&A 686, A42 (Gaia DR3 cluster catalogue, VizieR J/A+A/686/A42), retrieved 2026-10-21, NGC 7380: total 1,306 ± 90 Suns.
More deep-sky objects: M52 (Open Cluster) · IC 1396 (Elephant's Trunk Nebula) · NGC 7789 (Caroline's Rose / White Rose Cluster) · M39 (Open Cluster) · NGC 457 (ET Cluster / Owl Cluster) · M103 (Open Cluster)