Wizard Nebula NGC 7380

Hallows eve is here.  What a great time to capture the Wizard Nebula.  I tried finding this object for the first time 2 years ago in November.  I only owned my 12" aperture telescope for 2 months and I wanted to see some nebula.  I was looking at my star map and came across the Wizard Nebula in Cepheus.  I had to see this!  So I dragged my large telescope out and star hopped to the area.  I found a nice open star cluster which was NGC 7380 but I wasn't able to see a nebula.  I was a little let down.  I did some research and found out that narrow band filters were needed to see faint nebula so I ended up getting an OIII filter.  At first I didn't have much luck with filters but after about six months of observing my eyes were becoming better trained on what to look for.  A year later I purchased an H-beta filter and saw the Wizard Nebula for the first time.  I was at Massacre Rocks state park which is a great dark site.  I could see the shape of a cone of gas around the star cluster.  I imagined this as the top of the wizard's hat.  This Hallows eve ended up be a little cloudy.  I was able to get 2 hours of raw RGB data.  This will be a good start to an exciting Halloween project.

Happy Halloween!