Description:
Sh2-142, the Wizard nebula, imaged in SHO (over 24 hours of data) from Alqueva Dark Skies, Portugal, in September 2025.
In the image, sulfur (S II) emission is mapped to red, hydrogen-alpha (Hα) to green, and oxygen (O III) to blue — a common “Hubble palette” scheme.
The result is a vivid false-colour rendering: glowing gold and orange nebular arcs and ridges (from S II + Hα) contrast with cooler bluish pockets (from O III) that trace ionized oxygen regions. Dark dust lanes and silhouette features weave throughout the structure, lending depth and complexity.
The imagery highlights the filamentary edges, bright rims, and internal cavities of this H II region, giving a sense of the dynamic interplay between stellar radiation and the surrounding molecular clouds.