The Ghost of Cassiopeia is a thin cloud of gas and dust in the constellation Cassiopeia, catalogued as IC 63. It hangs beside Gamma Cassiopeiae, the bright middle star of the Queen's W, whose ultraviolet light both illuminates the cloud and slowly unravels it.
Where that radiation strikes the gas, hydrogen glows red. Dust in the same cloud scatters the star's blue-white light, so IC 63 is both an emission nebula and a reflection nebula, with a comet-like outline. A second cloud, IC 59, shares the wider Sharpless 2-185 complex around the star. Seen from Earth, IC 63 lies just behind Gamma Cassiopeiae; the near tip of the nebula is only about 7.5 light-years from the star, and the cloud is likely to disperse within about half a million years.
Facts
- IC 63 (also LBN 623), the Ghost of Cassiopeia, in Cassiopeia
- About 550 light-years away, the distance of Gamma Cassiopeiae
- About 10′ × 3′ on the sky, roughly 1.6 × 0.5 light-years
- Emission and reflection nebula lit by the hot star γ Cassiopeiae
- Position (J2000): 00h 59m 29s, +60° 54′ 40″
- Discovered by Max Wolf on 30 December 1893, the same night as IC 59
