Planetary nebulae in Cassiopeia
Some time ago I did a widefield image in HOO that included a part of this particular area which peaked my interest (check it out here). I had since planned to image the two relatively bright planetary nebulae in more detail which I now have done with over 106 hours of total exposure time!
Previously undocumented reflection nebulae (JEV-1 and JEV-2) - Possible discovery
I will for identification purposes, unless corrected, designate these reflection nebulae as JEV-1 and JEV-2, these are informal labels used to reference the objects. More on that below:
JEV-1: RA 02h 50m 06s, Dec +64 35’ 35” (J2000) - Located near HD 17327 (RA 02h 49m 58s, Dec +64 37’ 49”)
Deep imaging reveals faint reflection nebulosity centered approximately at RA 02h 50m 06s, Dec +64 35’ 35” (J2000), JEV-1, perhaps illuminated by HD 17327. A mag 7.82 luminous blue giant.

JEV-2: RA 02h 53m 12s, Dec +64 24’ 18” (J2000) - Located near HD 17706 (RA 02h 53m 40s, Dec +64 27’ 07”)
Approximately at RA 02h 53m 12s, Dec +64 24’ 18” (J2000) lies JEV-2 which may be illuminated by the Mag 6.3 blue subgiant HD 17706.

A SIMBAD search around each of the coordinates for JEV-1 and JEV-2 within a 10 arcmin radius show no catalogued nebulae (NGC, IC, Sharpless, vdB, LBN, Ced, Magakian). Nor could I get any results from the VizieR queries within 2 arcmin, there were no mentions of reflection nebulae as I could find by any of the keywords I used. This suggests that these features are not previously catalogued.

I came across an old research paper from 1968 by René Racine where these two HD stars are mentioned. The purpose of this paper seems to have been photometry, measuring stars in fields containing known reflection nebulae near the variable SU Cas, not cataloging new nebulae. While these stars were observed, Su Cas lies 800-1000ly away from HD17327 and HD17706 and the study does not report any nebulosity associated with them. This, combined with modern searches of SIMBAD, VizieR, and classical reflection nebula catalogs (van den Bergh 1966; Lynds 1965) further implies that the structures that are revealed in these deep images are previously uncatalogued.

A preview look at the linear data with STF applied and stars removed (no other processing done) show signal in the blue channel, faint traces in green and barely anything visible in the red continuum, this goes for both JEV-1 and JEV-2:
Furthermore the Ha and Oiii channels show absolutely no emission lines present:
In color we get the following view when we compare the finished image with broadband and narrowband separately:
A inverted color image outlines the two reflection nebulae quite nicely, JEV-1 at the bottom and JEV-2 on the top:
JEV-1 (Bottom circle center): RA 02h 50m 06s, Dec +64 35’ 35”
JEV-2 (top circle center) : RA 02h 53m 12s, Dec +64 24’ 18”

Both JEV-1 and JEV-2 are extremely faint and only apparent in fairly deep exposures. They require careful stretching to reveal the faint structures The signal is mostly visible in the blue band, faintly in the green band and not at all in the red band. Neither is it showing in narrowband, which strongly suggest we’re looking at reflection nebulosity. Dust scatters short wavelengths (blue band) more efficiently, the red continuum is weak and there are no emission lines present. We also have two fairly strong and bright stars present, the blue giant HD17327 and the blue subgiant HD17706.

Allwise W3 12um survey in Aladin Lite reveal faint dust emission at these locations, supporting the identification of the objects as reflection nebulae, which often have subtle IR signatures:
Skjermbilde 2026-01-14 221558.png The image and all these details has been shared with the “Deep Sky Hunters” group and has so far been confirmed as previously uncatalogued.

The unintended star of the show
While doing some preliminary stacks to assess data early on in the project I found some strange patterns. Usually, at these focal lengths, they would correlate to a comet seeing as the traces avoided every rejection algorithm even in the final stack:
Skjermbilde 2026-01-14 141720.png But no comet was to be seen in the area at this time. Nor could i find anything in my goto source Stellarium, despite all the extras I have loaded there. At this point I was pretty convinced it had to be an asteroid considering its apparent size and proximity. Further processing aligning every image on the moving object returned convincing results. No tail or sign of a coma, so for sure not a comet. The data was collected in RGB continuously for three hours:
Skjermbilde 2026-01-13 221019.png Skjermbilde 2026-01-13 221423.png I then decided to start searching for any known objects using MPChecker which gave me back one result. Afterwards I was able to manually load it into Stellarium to visually cross-check it’s actual position at the time of acquisition - and it was a match!
Skjermbilde 2026-01-14 120724.png 3041 Vanphilos
The mystery object was in fact discovered in 1981 and is a mag 12.3 classified Mars-crossing Asteroid. Which means that it is an asteroid whose orbit crosses that of Mars, it orbits the Sun in the inner main-belt once every 1330 days. It has a massive diameter of 7km and is technically classed as a minor planet. This is what astronomy is all about for me, finding something weird and then spend a day analyzing data and figuring out what it is. A massive coincidence that it just happened to cross my path at the exact right time of course, but you never know what might turn up in your data so it’s always a joy to study even the tiniest details!

Abell 6 - PN G136.1+04.9 / PK 136+04.1
Abell 6 is a compact planetary nebula strong in both Ha and Oiii, except for the faint outflow which is primarily visible in the Oiii spectrum. It’s roughly circular bubble shape, much like Ju-1 (Soab Bubble Nebula) and has a visual magnitude of 15 which is rather faint. The circular shell is quite typical of planetary nebula as the dying central star expell shells of gas. The central star is AG82 17, with a magnitude of about 19.6. Given that the star is so much fainter than the nebula itself it may point towards the fact that most of the star’s luminosity has been lost, leaving behind a hot and compact core which is typical for planetary nebula.
HFG-1 - PN G136.3+05.5 / PK 136+05.1
HFG-1 is a much more complex planetary nebula. The core of the nebula is the close binary system V664 Cas, consisting of a white dwarf and a Sun-like companion star orbiting each other with a period of approximately 14 hours. The system is moving rapidly through the interstellar medium, and this high relative velocity produces a strong interaction between the expanding nebular material and the surrounding gas. As a result, shockwave shells form a prominent bow-shock arc in the direction of motion, while an extended ionized tail is left trailing behind in the opposite direction. This interaction gives HFG 1 its asymmetric morphology and makes it a classic example of a planetary nebula shaped by motion through the interstellar medium.

Other notable mentions:

LEDA 2797165
LEDA 2667173 (AGN Candidate)
LEDA 2676045HD 17958 (Red supergiant)
Case 306 (Carbon star)
Lan 477