Gyulbudaghian's Nebula, as labelled in the annotated revision, is a variable reflection nebula about 1' to 1.5' in size. The nebula changes shape and brightness over months and years. The reflection nebula seems to be the outer edges of a funnel-like shell carved out of the surrounding molecular cloud by the Herbig-Haro jet. The remaining shell is illuminated by the star. As the light passes through the dusty cloud, it is absorbed and scattered, with blue light most easily scattered, giving the nebula a bluish hue.
This nebula was discovered by an
Armenian astronomer, Dr. Armen Liparit Gyulbudaghian. Dr. Gyulbudaghian is currently a Leading Research Associate at the
Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory. He discovered this nebula, officially catalogued as GM 1-29, in 1977 while performing a survey for new Herbig-Haro objects. The M in GM 1-29 stands for Magakyan, the co-author on the discovery paper. The object as a whole is known as HH 215 with the pre-main sequence star PV Cep as its source (both labelled in the annotation).
Currently, only the reflection of the northern jet of HH 215 is visible. Over the next couple of years, what looks like a thin reflection line in this image will most likely brighten to a funnel shape north of PV Cep. The southern jet is occluded by the dark nebula just south of PV Cep. There are several more HH objects in the surrounding region, with 12 labelled in the annotated view.
Lastly, several chaotic dark nebulae compose the larger portion of this image, with a bright nebula [B77] 38 in the upper right, finding its way out of the surrounding darkness.
I shot this image over 8 relatively rare nights in May 2020 (12, 13, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23) with varying transparency, wind, and seeing. I discarded 48% of the total set of exposures I captured due to star elongation, high clouds, etc.
Thank you for reading this description and taking a gander at my image. I hope you all stay safe and healthy.
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