Here is an image in OSC of SH2-187.  SH2-187 is hiding just a bit behind west of

IC 63, IC 59, NGC 381, Dobashi 3771 and 27 Cas in OSC w Starless Zoom Mouse Over. Mosaic
This is another in a line of small, less than spectacular nebula that I have been drawn too because I have become more and more interested in reflection nebulae (RN).  In the challenge of discovery, rather than just go to catalogs of RN, I chose to use Aladin visual to search for candidates that fit into my skies at this time of the year.  As it turns out, this little gem is really a complex combination of many things.  Its color of soft pink on the visual images found in Aladin suggested this object could be a RN.  Also, the "lit" regions of the nebula also appear to be very close to the stars that are illuminating it.  In addition, the stars that are nearby seem to fall into the class of lower mass and less energetic, thereby likely being starved of the abundance of UV required of emission nebulae.  Yes there are some very bright blue stars in the field of this image, but they conspicuously appear unable to excite any number of other clouds that are in the field, and also would expect to be shielded from exciting some of the brighter parts of SH2-187, which seem to have dark molecular clouds hovering over them.  I believe that these bright stars are simply foreground stars, well removed from the nebula behind.  Though I admit I have not investigated the distances.  However, a good number of others here on AstroBin have posted images of this very same nebula in HII and that signal is also quite significant.  So it is no surprise that SH2-187 is also listed as an emission nebula, and in particular an HII emitting one.  Of course, most, but not all of the Sharpless 2 catalog are emission nebulae.  In my OSC image, I think the telling thing is the pinkish hue likekly representing the stronger HII components.  Below the center of the bright sections, there are clearly RN components that are lit by stars seen on the image.  A bit further down, a smallish blue star very faintly illuminates a diffuse bluish RN.  Throughout, if one spends some time, there are reflection components seen along the edges of some of the dark molecular clouds further removed from SH2-187 as well. In the upper right quadrant of the image, there is some flocculant IFN-like structures.  

SH2-187 is not just a nice small colored smudge on our skies, it is also an isolated smallish star-forming nebula.  As one looks at the field, there appears to be a dearth of stars that are within the visual confines of the nebula and also the denser molecular clouds.  The mouseover hopefully will work for you and if so you will see that there are many stars in tight formations hidden within this nebula.  No doubt, these stars, as an open cluster, are the primary contributors to the illumination of the bright sections.  Given the tight confines, it appears that this star-forming locale is producing mostly lower mass stars at this time.  It may also indicate that this is a very new activity for this molecular/gas cloud.   I am speculating that these stars haven't had the time, or the energy to blow this cloud outward, as we see in so many others.  However, Simbad lists all the culprits of star formation here.  There is a Bubble.  Maybe destined to expand greatly.  There are also YSOs and HH objects.  There are a whole bunch of NIR, Far IR, submillimeter, masers, and radio emitting objects.  Most  of the spectacular nebulae that naturally attract the astrophotographer are engergized by very massive blue supergiants.  Most are associated with clusters of such stars, or are nearby a single hot blue star.  But modern surveys have concluded that greater than 95% of the stars in our galaxy, and most galaxies are much smaller stars.  Most not even visible to our relatively small aperature scopes.  Low mass dwarf stars being the most numerous.  And but a few are able to be imaged by us.  The bright clusters that power the "popular" nebulae seem to consist of many of the giants that power them.  Certainly there may be smaller stars formed in these clusters, but the very nature of the giants' rapid life cycle and the fact that in birth they actually destroy their natal clouds, suggests that many of the invisible stars may well be born in clusters within relatively smaller, less spectacular nursuries, such as SH2-187.  

This field was a real struggle for me to capture and process.  I collected subs over several nights.  The first session, I dealt with winds that killed my hfr and most of the images.  Because I so rarely get to image at this time of the year here in the PNW, I was very generous in selecting subs.  The last session, I was able to collect much better subs.  So maybe I should not have combined the subs from these sessions.  But in the end, I still only could use just over 3.5 hr of data.  Finally, I struggled with the processing and scrapped and started over several times. Dynamic Background Extraction failed for me this time.  It just could not get rid of a vignetting like feature that came up on this project.  It also created some odd gradients.  ABE actually did a better job this time, but still not perfect.  Also, the field contains diffuse signals that I just could not know for sure was real or defect!  I do believe that the fog in the lower right corner is a defect, but who knows?!  It is somewhat in line with the darker clouds...  The fact that no galaxies are seen, nada, suggests to me that this area is dense with molecular cloud.  So what to do?  I do know that the flocculant, IFN-like cloud in the upper right corner is real.  In any case, after long processing sessions, this one needed to end.  Especially for something that may be interesting, but is not a wall-hanger!

Aside from difficult conditions with this project, I am getting more and more excited about what the 12 inch Newt can do.  With the power of stacking and even with rather blurry subs from the poor conditions, I was stunned that I could resolve the close double that is part of the quintet near the center of the nebulosity.  Still need to continue to dial in the backfocus, and maybe some tilt, but I am not complaining.  Next project is to get my QHY268C adapted to the imaging train.